Polite discourse on the future of Rogues

#0 - Oct. 31, 2008, 12:12 p.m.

GhostCrawler:

With the release of WotlK close at hand we know Blizzard is working tirelessly in their respective departments to address the more serious of concerns still remaining before launch. There are countless minor details which is why the company has teams of people working on them. We appreciate your time away from that to address our concerns as a community which not only financially makes this WoW market possible, but has a lot of personal time invested in their individual characters.
One of the struggles in a game that has two distinct foci is balancing them within the same game. Some of the changes made for PvE effect the PvP viability of certain classes and abilities and vice versa. This is perhaps personally my greatest concern, and I would imagine the largest consideration for the developers when they are instituting changes.

If I may ask a few questions;

1. With the reworking of “tanking” stats the rogue ability to dodge as a primary form of melee damage reduction has been significantly reduced to levels which impair their survivability in PvP, it is feared.

***What is Blizzard’s position, and possible compensation for the reduction in the rogues ability to dodge?

2. With the removal of the snare negating effect on shadowstep, there are concerns about the mobility of rogues in a PvP environment where utility is just as important as damage. At the very least many players feel obligated to try and acquire the improved sprint talent lest waste cooldowns normally reserved for other aspects of combat, e.g. Cloak of shadows to break frost nova.

***With the emphasis and ability of many classes to snare, hamstring, slow, and chill with little to no cooldown increasing, how do the developers plan to compensate in the mobility of melee classes, especially when our mobility is specifically being reduced and the prevalence of snares is increasing?

3. We understand that play style of a class may change, and change is scary for us all. Hemorrhage has been a main attack for almost four year and we understand it is to be considered a debuff attack in the upcoming expansion. It has been the general consensus that the debuff is rather insignificant to be a dedicated supportive roll in the realm of PvP combat.

***What do the developers think about the debuff and damage provided by the hemorrhage ability with respect to PvP combat? Are there any plans to either increase the debuff to resemble those available to other classes or uphold and restore the ability’s role as a primary attack within the configuration of certain builds?

4. Finally, as will all new programs and games there are bugs to work out, and the rogue community is fairly adamant about issues with the proper function of stealth and vanish.

***Are the programmers and developers aware of any particular bugs or problems with the workings of stealth and vanish and is so are steps being taken, as I imagine they would be, to rectify the situation?

There are many other questions, I am sure. If we could in cordial fashion respectfully await the possibility of your response on these particular issues, and reserve the asking of more humble inquires in the future, know that we will be much obliged for your response. Thank you in advance for your effort in keeping the community up to speed in the progress and work of the makers of a game we all love to play and look forward to playing for quite some time to come.

Thank you,
Vindicare

#13 - Nov. 2, 2008, 4:51 a.m.

Q u o t e:
1. With the reworking of “tanking” stats the rogue ability to dodge as a primary form of melee damage reduction has been significantly reduced to levels which impair their survivability in PvP, it is feared.

***What is Blizzard’s position, and possible compensation for the reduction in the rogues ability to dodge?

You could be refering to one of two things -- the higher dodge ratings required, in which case you'll eventually catch up with good gear, or the diminishing returns at very high avoidance rating, but in those cases they are just diminishing returns. Your dodge does still increase.

We're not too worried about rogue survival in PvP at the current time. Rogues still have plenty of tricks. We do think PvP is a little bursty overall at level 70, but the recent change in resilience and the higher health pools at level 80 should help that.

Q u o t e:
2. With the removal of the snare negating effect on shadowstep, there are concerns about the mobility of rogues in a PvP environment where utility is just as important as damage. At the very least many players feel obligated to try and acquire the improved sprint talent lest waste cooldowns normally reserved for other aspects of combat, e.g. Cloak of shadows to break frost nova.

***With the emphasis and ability of many classes to snare, hamstring, slow, and chill with little to no cooldown increasing, how do the developers plan to compensate in the mobility of melee classes, especially when our mobility is specifically being reduced and the prevalence of snares is increasing?

Again, your question is all about compensation. We don't know that any is needed. Rogues were a very good PvP class in BC and Cloak was either overpowered or bordering on overpowered for a lot of that time.

Q u o t e:
3. We understand that play style of a class may change, and change is scary for us all. Hemorrhage has been a main attack for almost four year and we understand it is to be considered a debuff attack in the upcoming expansion. It has been the general consensus that the debuff is rather insignificant to be a dedicated supportive roll in the realm of PvP combat.

***What do the developers think about the debuff and damage provided by the hemorrhage ability with respect to PvP combat? Are there any plans to either increase the debuff to resemble those available to other classes or uphold and restore the ability’s role as a primary attack within the configuration of certain builds?

As a debuff, it can still account for a lot of damage. Usually when rogues complain about it, it's because it isn't boosting their personal damage enough (because other players are using all the charges). On that last part, players may use it as a primary attack, but that doesn't mean we designed it to be.

Q u o t e:
4. Finally, as will all new programs and games there are bugs to work out, and the rogue community is fairly adamant about issues with the proper function of stealth and vanish.

***Are the programmers and developers aware of any particular bugs or problems with the workings of stealth and vanish and is so are steps being taken, as I imagine they would be, to rectify the situation?

One could write several volumes on the epic adventures of Vanish. :) Here is how I think the story goes: Players were convinced for a long time that there were bugs with Vanish. We finally got a few good cases where we could repro the problem and those were fixed (say sometime post-Sunwell). There may still be some edge cases where it still happens. I believe those are more rare, but some players are so used to the concept of Vanish being bugged that they assume nothing has ever changed. It's one of those jokes that has become larger than life (almost like Ony deep breathing more).

There were some more recent legitimate stealth bugs, at least in PvP. We just fixed several of them. I can't recall if those were hotfixed or not.

Q u o t e:
There are many other questions, I am sure. If we could in cordial fashion respectfully await the possibility of your response on these particular issues, and reserve the asking of more humble inquires in the future, know that we will be much obliged for your response. Thank you in advance for your effort in keeping the community up to speed in the progress and work of the makers of a game we all love to play and look forward to playing for quite some time to come.

You are being exceedingly polite, which of course isn't a problem. But I don't want anyone to think that's the manner you need to adopt to get your thread read. Posters do get banned for offensive language (we do have kids reading these after all), or for questions which are just thinly veiled trolls, but otherwise, we try to read everything.