Button Bloat - Rogue Edition

[Verain]

We don't know. Except that we do. I can smell an irrevocable rogue nerf a mile away by now.

[ymirsson]

Am i getting this right?

SnD should be passive, TotT should be passive, Shadow Walk should be passive, Shadow Blades should be passive and poisons should be passive.

And we should do more active damage, because being a autoattack-poison machine is boring.

This does not sound very reasonable.

[Squirl]

Am i getting this right?

SnD should be passive, TotT should be passive, Shadow Walk should be passive, Shadow Blades should be passive and poisons should be passive.

And we should do more active damage, because being a autoattack-poison machine is boring.

This does not sound very reasonable.

SnD is already considered passive damage by most people. TotT is just lame; I think most of us want the damage component removed or reworked, but the MD is awesome. You're playing combat, so SB is already passive if you macro it with AR like 99% of all rogues. Poisons are already passive.

This is not the topic of the thread, but SnD is the root of our "passive damage" problem. It buffs our autoattacks and poisons so much that those passive sources of damage have to make up a bulk of our damage breakdown. If it doesn't, SnD won't be worth casting. If SnD were removed, more of our damage could come from builders and finishers.

Personally, I don't really care where our damage comes from. I just like doing big damage and having a rewarding rotation. I think both Subt and Combat fit that bill while Mut is lacking in both categories (only recently the former though).

[Maelstrom51]

SnD should be passive, TotT should be passive, Shadow Walk should be passive, Shadow Blades should be passive and poisons should be passive.

I think most people would like SnD and the damage effect of TotT completely removed rather than passive.

[Deleted]

remove expose armor/merge it/glyph it/talent it into an other finisher
remove redirect and make combo points on rogue
remove prep and add a charge to cooldowns previously affected by prep
merge shadow blade with adrenaline rush/vendetta. live it as is for sub
remove trick of the trade
remove slice n dice from assa
make pick lock like disarm trap (no need to click ability) and make those two abilities passive

/!\ hardcore button bloat reduction /!\
merge dispatch with mutilate
merge revealing strike with sinister strike
merge backstab with hemorrhage



also, lots of people in this thread tend to forget that distract can actually be used outside of stealth.

[ymirsson]

SnD is already considered passive damage by most people. TotT is just lame; I think most of us want the damage component removed or reworked, but the MD is awesome. You're playing combat, so SB is already passive if you macro it with AR like 99% of all rogues. Poisons are already passive.

This is not the topic of the thread, but SnD is the root of our "passive damage" problem. It buffs our autoattacks and poisons so much that those passive sources of damage have to make up a bulk of our damage breakdown. If it doesn't, SnD won't be worth casting. If SnD were removed, more of our damage could come from builders and finishers.

Personally, I don't really care where our damage comes from. I just like doing big damage and having a rewarding rotation. I think both Subt and Combat fit that bill while Mut is lacking in both categories (only recently the former though).

My "analysis" was intentionally shallow, but i do not see that much to remove an a rogue's actionbar.

Expose Armor: We do feel hampered by having to keep this up, if we do have to. But i'd rather have a glyph to change the application (longer duration/less energy/more stacks) or an outright change without glyph then removing it. After all, if rogues can't be asked to do it, why should warriors or druids be? And if noone does it, why have the armor debuff ingame? It's not even important for a tank anymore.

Shadow Walk: Many people complain they never use it. That's not the definition of button bloat or superfluous. It only tells us that some people don't play to their max. It has a longh CD, it's only useable in stealth and it only helps to stay in stealth. A niche, but it has a lot of flavor, a lot of utility and stealth action bars are not exactly full.

Shadow Blades: We got a new skill in MoP which is so effective, you use it any time you can. Do you rather have a button that works or compensation and a new ability that gets forgotten like Shadow Walk instead.? I too think SB should not be simply macroable( nor passive), but i don't know how. But losing SB would most likely only weaken us.

Poisons: "People lose damage if they forget their poison." That's an argument? Every class loses something if they forget their class specific selfbuffbuttons. All i'm asking is poisons to override weapon enchants.

TotT: Yeah, the threat portion is almost useless and the damage portion is almost mindless. This could be our Skull Banner, but i don't know if WoW needs another offensive cooldown. And to anyone saying "rogues should not buff other people": go play solitaire. I may be a rogue, but i'm not dumb nor do i slay dragons solo on a daily basis. Keep your stupid kid's dreams of the ninjaassassinpirategangster reveling in hedonistic selfpleasure business while denying anyone any assistance because "it's not rouge enouff" to yourself.
Maybe change TotT to a defensive/utility CD, like Fiery Demise blogged.

SnD: ok, you got me, i too want to see snd go away and have my Chaos Bolt styled Backstab, going for the seven digit damage numbers. No wait. I want seven digit eviscerates and bigger (then now) builders. Because the only time i do "real damage" is in FW with all buffs up.

p.s.
still pissed about monks

[catablitz]

It is so awfully f@#@ enjoyable to laugh at those who were asking utility tools and raid buffs/debuffs few years ago and now they qq.

Sidenote: I think I read somewhere that sunder is gone for at least dps warriors.

[Deleted]

just remove SnD from Mut and Sub and everything will be great! as said above, SnD is one of the main reasons why passive white damage is so dominant across all rogue specs, and is only there to reduce PvP burst through yellow hits. Rebalancing damage and health numbers in WoD should make SnD obsolete, allowing for more damage coming from abilities.

also remove expose armor and the whole armor debuff thing on bosses.

[dak1]

1. Redirect (combo points now stack on the Rogue / auto-move as you switch)
2. Shadow Blades (no need for another damage cd)
3. Shadow Walk (maybe just make our stealth slightly stronger than druid's)
4. Preparation (shorten all cooldowns and/or give them charges instead)
5. Relentless Strikes (passive) (Just remove the energy cost of all finishing moves instead of this hack)
6. Slice and Dice (boring gameplay)
7. Rupture (and Sanguinary Vein for Subtlety)
8. Expose Armor (possibly replace with passive armor reduction for all specs)
9. Hemorrhage (no more positional requirements makes this largely redundant) (Subtlety)
10. Tricks of the Trade (causes balance issues when damage stacking with Mages and isn't exactly fun to use)
11. Shiv (outside of Paralytic Poison, this is essentially useless, and Paralytic is being removed)

Other even more aggressive possibilities include:
1. Poisons (maybe give them to Assassiniation and bake the rest in automatically... they just don't feel like they offer little to no choice any more)
2. Master Poisoner (Passive)
3. Feint (this ability is so far from what it was originally intended to be in Vanilla and it feels more like a hack to fix Rogue survival)
4. Bandit's Guile (Combat, Passive) (Creates horrible ramp/switching issues for combat)

Granted, some of the above changes would be offset with something or need to be reverted.

[Kael]

It is so awfully f@#@ enjoyable to laugh at those who were asking utility tools and raid buffs/debuffs few years ago and now they qq.

Was someone calling for melee haste buff or poison applying magic damage debuff to be removed? Because I missed any post doing that, so this reads like nonsense. People are calling for tricks to go, but it doesn't really have a lot to do with threat anymore anyway, since those piddly 500% threat modifiers came into play, and what with melee attacks causing a split second delay before transferring threat having the chance to instagib the rogue, while hunters are totally safe.

[shadowboy]

Was someone calling for melee haste buff or poison applying magic damage debuff to be removed? Because I missed any post doing that, so this reads like nonsense. People are calling for tricks to go, but it doesn't really have a lot to do with threat anymore anyway, since those piddly 500% threat modifiers came into play, and what with melee attacks causing a split second delay before transferring threat having the chance to instagib the rogue, while hunters are totally safe.

600%. Tank threat was buffed in 5.4.

[Kael]

OK. I stopped paying attention after people 40+ ilevels under me started having a shot at holding threat. Good to know I had the modifier wrong, though :P

Tsh. Even on Dark Apotheosis. And I was using that yesterday. Shame on me =(

[Verain]

Am i getting this right?

SnD should be passive, TotT should be passive, Shadow Walk should be passive, Shadow Blades should be passive and poisons should be passive.

There are folks that argue that.

Slice and Dice I really like. But I'm not sure it's as excellent as it could be. For mutilate, they are making it 100% passive. That is, in fact, fine. An alternative would be to remove it from that spec, and deliver a lot more yellow damage instead.

I haven't seen much argument for shadow walk being passive. I mostly see people who don't even map the button trying to get me nerfed because I'm good at using it to open on them in pvp- or at least, that's how I read that. Shadow Walk is underutilized and has almost no pve roll, but in pvp it's so strategic and fun.

No one seems to talk shit about shadow blades. I make sure to mention how shadow blades is easily the best thing rogues got out of mop- a spec inspecific cooldown that lets us deal magical damage and is purple. It's pretty much the best. No one wants it to be passive, that I have seen- some people don't like it because they macro it with AR- this isn't even optimal in all situations (blades lasts only a fraction of AR time, and if you are in green when you AR, holding it off for a couple seconds will give a higher multiplier to blades on average, as long as blades starts and finishes inside AR), but not only is that just a combat issue but it's arguably pretty cool- combat has plenty of cooldowns anyway.


Poisons are not really living up to what they were at the start, honestly. I still like them a lot, but I would like to see this:

Lethal poisons:

Deadly Poison -> Our favorite dot, unchanged.
Cursed Poison -> Only 80% as potent as deadly poison, it deals an extra 40% (so 1.12x) damage to undead.
Burnblood Poison -> Only 90% as potent as deadly poison, this reduces healing taken by 10%, and is fire damage.
Wound Poison -> Unchanged

See how this could populate a spellbook pretty nicely? A set of poisons that are useful under niche conditions is interesting, even if most rogues don't use them all the time. I'd really like that.

Nonlethal poisons:

These really don't fit the bill anymore. We've only ever had five of these effects- one that stops enrages, one that snares, one that stuns, one that slows casting, and one that heals. The problem is, these are kind of silly. Rogues are absolutely unplayable without a snare. Lets try this:

Mind Numbing Poison: 40% snare + 10% casting snare
Leeching Poison: 40% snare + heal proc
Feeble Poison: 40% snare + 10% less physical damage dealt
Vulnerability Poison: 4% extra physical damage taken (raid debuff)
Mindstrain Poison: 40% snare + spells cost 10% extra mana
Crippling Poison: 55% snare

See how you can make a list of cool things here? Note that all of these would have a lesser snare built in, so you wouldn't be helpless by choosing them, but crippling would deliver a nicer snare than the others. I really like the idea of raid debuffs coming from poisons as well- it would allow rogues to be a bit more hunter like.


But, we won't see any of this. Poisons are historically underutilized, and so are almost all the things similar to them- ask a DK about how much love his runeforges have seen.

And we should do more active damage, because being a autoattack-poison machine is boring.

A lotta folks like this idea. I don't. I really feel that as long as we are in control of maintaining our proper rotation, our damage is ours. If mutilate does X damage plus Y damage, then that's active. But if it does X damage and then half the time does 2*Y damage, that's passive. The mind boggles.

It's fine to be good at autoattacks and poisons. Knowing that your character is better at melee than the rest of the team is important- especially because they are adding to their melee skills by throwing lightning bolts or whatever else around. I worry that these folks are missing the kit of being a rogue to a great degree, while using mechanics to mask their concern.

Expose Armor: We do feel hampered by having to keep this up, if we do have to. But i'd rather have a glyph to change the application (longer duration/less energy/more stacks) or an outright change without glyph then removing it. After all, if rogues can't be asked to do it, why should warriors or druids be? And if noone does it, why have the armor debuff ingame? It's not even important for a tank anymore.

I don't see any problem with EA. I like that it's a choice, and a combo point for cheap. I can do clever things with the existing version, and sometimes I have actually done this in arena to set up for a spree twenty seconds later that gets a kill. I kinda wish that this debuff was a bit more meaningful like it used to be. I would like the full three stack to be applied without having to glyph it, but I think rogues are actually one of the best to keep this debuff up now, and that is so much better than ever before. I dunno, I like the status quo here.

Shadow Blades: We got a new skill in MoP which is so effective, you use it any time you can.

No. Like any cooldown, you use it when you should. You might be misusing it! Granted, normally you just use it on cooldown, like every other cooldown.

I too think SB should not be simply macroable( nor passive), but i don't know how.

By not macroable do you mean that we should have to press it separately for no reason except silliness? Right now, you are rewarded by waiting a couple moments into your AR before pressing blades depending on where you are in your cycle. But this gain is small and most rogues don't bother with it. Also this is only an issue for combat.


Blades is good cooldown. I wouldn't mind a bit of a bribe to not stack it with AR in all cases, but I'm fine with the stacking. In PvP I've often used AR to get to red, then Bladespree to get a kill- I only macro them together if I think I'll actually be able to get the use out of them there.

1. Redirect (combo points now stack on the Rogue / auto-move as you switch)

If CP is on the rogue in all three specs, then we don't need redirect. If it's only on the rogue in one spec, then the others need it still.

2. Shadow Blades (no need for another damage cd)

You are wrong. We absolutely need blades.

3. Shadow Walk (maybe just make our stealth slightly stronger than druid's)

No. Shadow Walk is not bloat. We used to have slightlhy stronger stealth. This is much nicer from a strategic perspective.

4. Preparation (shorten all cooldowns and/or give them charges instead)

Shorten is awful. I would hate that. Double cooldowns would be ok- it's a big buff, of course it's ok- but you lose the strategic aspect.

5. Relentless Strikes (passive) (Just remove the energy cost of all finishing moves instead of this hack)

This is not a button. Why are you listing this in here? Also note that RS actually rewards high combo point finishers- without RS, you'd need different scaling on the damage. Certainly, this core part of the rogue rotation that doesn't have a button isn't bloat. In fact, nothing you've said is- rogues don't have button bloat.

6. Slice and Dice (boring gameplay)

Maintaining buffs is a core part of dps rotations. Nothing is boring about it. Maintaining slice and dice efficiently separates good from bad rogues.
Note that it will be removed from assassination, becoming passive instead. Assassination doesn't really have it today, and honestly, it would probably be a better spec if it did. In any event, Assassination should get a little bit more besides dispatch procs, which is clearly the mechanic they have instead of.

7. Rupture (and Sanguinary Vein for Subtlety)

I don't want to lose my dot in any spec at all. A dot finisher is good design. This is not bloat, it is strategy.

8. Expose Armor (possibly replace with passive armor reduction for all specs)

While I like EA for reasons above, if the armor debuff goes away then so will this. If it doesn't go away, I don't want to lose it. Please remember EA is a raid buff- it would never be replaced with a rogue specific armor ignore. If the raid buff stays, we keep it. If the raid buff gets deleted, we lose it. Simple.

9. Hemorrhage (no more positional requirements makes this largely redundant) (Subtlety)

If backstab is unidirectional, sub will probably need a different auxillary builder. Blizzard has been very keen on the idea of each spec having a primary and auxillary builder.

10. Tricks of the Trade (causes balance issues when damage stacking with Mages and isn't exactly fun to use)

I like tricks a lot, and I find it very fun to use on a good dps and get a good return. It makes us aware of the rest of the dps and we can get a bit more personal damage out of using it on the highest dps when they are popping their cooldowns. Our ele shaman has a macro to announce ascendance, and many of our progression kills have had ludicrous numbers out of tricks during that. Strongly recommend we keep this move.

11. Shiv (outside of Paralytic Poison, this is essentially useless, and Paralytic is being removed)

Shiv I'd prefer a redesign on. I also like the 70% snare on it. It's not useless in any manner. But it could use work.




Anyway, lists like this are often "moves I don't understand much and don't use", and that makes me sad, because I know the devs really are more likely to axe moves like that.




But why? Why should I be punished because there's not much use for Shadow Walk, or whatever? What is so burdensome about having cool powers instead of some arcade buttons? This is a goddamned MMO and we have skills, come on, wake up!

[ymirsson]

What he said.

[chibichibiko]

Chiming in: I don't think we have a button bloat so much as a design bloat.
Expose armor: Baseline or glyph, but I already feel starved for glyph slots. It's fairly damaging to the rogue's damage to keep this up, and no other class is really taxed in that way for maintaining a buff/debuff. I can think of it like tricks, in that i give up some of my rotational dps to boost the overall group dps, but with respect to the armor break debuff, rogues stand out as the only class that actually makes a sacrifice. Bake in the armor break to envenom/eviscerate, but keep expose armor. Make it major armor break debuff that stacks with the normal expose passive. Give it a small cooldown (1-2m).
Crimson Tempest: I could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure no rogue suffers from never having this on their bars. It could use redesign.
Premeditation: a lot of rogues macro this anyway, and while it's useful to set up slice and dice or recuperate while stealthed, I feel like we'd adapt pretty well to not having it.
Dispatch: Could just make a mutilate free (or envenom, or rupture) and do bonus damage below a certain %.

Buttons that have come up that I wouldn't want to change:
Prep: PvP burst defense. With the advent of readiness as a stat, shorter cooldowns will be an option for people that really want them. This button lets us have them back to back, which is special. What I could see is every one of our cooldowns affected by prep having 2 charges. That would resolve the button but keep the mechanic.
Pickpocket: I wouldn't mind enemies having better pockets, but this isn't causing bloat. Hell, it's free money if you macro it into an opener (hence no bloat).
Tricks: Are you insane? This is useful in every encounter in pvp and pve. The only person who could stand to lose Tricks is a hermit that never plays with anyone else.
Shadow Walk: This ability has its place, especially with the glyph. I've ninja'd many a tower/bunker in AV on account of shadow walk, and it's useful that it's not always on, because it enhances the cat and mouse game of rogue v rogue in pvp.

[isaaru]

Well, this title still ticks me off, but whatever.


The thing is, rogues don't have "bloat". Claiming 20% as a ballpark figure was probably not arrived at, but likely held as a goal. The question really is, do rogues have too many buttons?

The answer is no.

I completely agree. rogues have very few ability's and i being an end game raider and a daily pvp'r i use Every ability we have, and on a boss theirs only two i don't use that are available to be as sub(expose armor and disarm which i still USE ALOT just not on a boss). and anyone that doesn't think TotT is a good ability is out of their mind, how else do you unload all your cooldowns on a boss during a pull? + 10% dps buff to your guild best damage dealer is pretty huge when you use it every CD.

ambush/backstab cant go anywhere unless they take rogues out o the game, maybe we could merg them the way the 4piece bonus does.
SnD&Rupture uptime is what seperates the good from the bad rogues(something the game needs) again possibly a merger of the two but they CANT go.
vanish/shadowwalk/shadowblades are my BIGGEST damage buffs(by pass ALL armor/ leave combat/ use openers multi times for BIG dps burst)

the only abilitys that are canidates imo are expose armor/fient/evasion/gouge/combat readyness and like i said i pvp alot so i spam my feint every 5secs



<---this guy is waiting for More abilitys and may be shedding a tear in WoD....then again the new shadow ability thingy has me creaming my pants alleady so i willing to make a trade, but i dont wish the total number of ability's to change in anyway but up

AND OMG GLYPH REDIRECT AND IT FIXXES THE PROBLEM ROGUES HAVE WITH CP's 10secs is nothing you get to use all your cps w/o losing any on adds or spawns mid fight. w/ the glyph its simply amazing, but it shouldnt have EVER had a one minute cool down, it should be 5-15 secs imo

- - - Updated - - -

I think most people would like SnD and the damage effect of TotT completely removed rather than passive.

NO, SnD is the MAIN dmg buff, and TotT amazing

[catablitz]

Ok, you know what they say about opinions...So,

1) TotT is not liked by everyone. Cba to paste what Aldriana and Pathal indicated long ago, so I ll just point out the basics:
a) Giving up personal dps to make someone do more dps isn't fun. Especially not for rogue class, one of the most iconic old school pure dps classes. Period. You cannot go further than this from the archetype of rogue. That's why players most of the times prefer to swap tricks with another rogue.
b) Tricks is already weak compared to a hunter's MD ability because rogues have limited ranged capabilities so it isn't often useful for assisting tanks on pickups. Especially when we all agree that threat is not an issue nowdays anyway.
c) Every 30 seconds you hit that button, there is no interaction there, it is hit this button on cooldown to not lose raid dps. It is not that you are a pro player by keeping track of Omen or old KTM and use TotT optimally . What happens now is that a supposed utility ability has become a dps ability with the paradox that it is not your dps and if you don't hit the button you are penalized by penalizing another guy's dps. FAIL!
d) The most disgusting thing about it is that Blizzard is forcing you to use it, no matter the cost. Remember the old tr12 set bonus and remember the removal of the glyph.
e) Heck! It is not even out of gcd!

If you really want to name it utility of some kind then why in the name of the god you believe none has mentioned the simplest thing to fix it and make both the in favor and the against party happy? I am talking about making it a proper, normal and orthodox raid cd if not a personal one. You will still have to keep track of it and hit it on cd, difference is that it will make sense!

Some abilities will be gone. I for one want this to go first.

2. SnD
a) For those that don't remember SnD was buffed ages ago to compensate for nerfing the finishers, mainly eviscerate.(PVP reasons ofc).
Point is that now there is a chance to fix both and balance them once and for all.
b) SnD is iconic and at least one spec should keep it.
c) Our finishers right now do not award the feeling of that big nuke that takes 5 CPs. This is understandable, because 5 CPs doesn't mean 5 attacks prior. It also doesn't mean 5 times the damage of the builder. On the other hand, it also doesn't mean that it has to be < times 2 the damage of the builder.

long story short, SnD can stay and be tweaked and balanced with finishers. Imagine harder finishers and SnD scaling for the specs that keep it. Sub has it allready, combat can incorporate it in BG (if it stays)

@Kael

Was someone calling for melee haste buff or poison applying magic damage debuff to be removed? Because I missed any post doing that, so this reads like nonsense. People are calling for tricks to go, but it doesn't really have a lot to do with threat anymore anyway, since those piddly 500% threat modifiers came into play, and what with melee attacks causing a split second delay before transferring threat having the chance to instagib the rogue, while hunters are totally safe.

You didn't miss any post, you just answer to things that haven't been mentioned. When I said that people asked back in time for utility and raid wise buffs and now they regret cause they didn't like the gifts, I mean exactly that. Until TBC rogue was probably the only class in game that had 0 button to push that offered something to anyone but him. Exception was -If memory serves correct- the old hemo ( or was it serrated blades?) that placed some charges on target of some kind of extra damage taken which was of meaningless proportions. Obviously I was referring to TotT and not to swiftblade's cunning...

[Deleted]

We need distract to interrupt healers drinking etc!

[Deleted]

e) Heck! It is not even out of gcd!

It's actually not on the gcd.

[Squirl]

It's actually not on the gcd.

You should probably check again.