Are rogues "done" until WotLK content patch?

#0 - Oct. 31, 2008, 1:12 p.m.

It's now less than two weeks until Wrath of the Lich King hits and I realize that while the game has gone gold you guys are working vicariously until the day of with some patches for us to get those last minute changes going in. I applaud the entire Blizzard development team for the effort and energy put into this game.

But with that in mind, I have a questions about the rogue class. I don't want to come off as a QQer or someone who is just asking for flat out buffs for no reason, but I would like to present (what I consider IMO) logical and objective questions concerning the state of the rogue class after playing in Beta and 3.0 on Live.

1) Are our 51 point talents done until WotLK goes live?

- Hunger For Blood is a very lackluster PVP talent that very few rogues go for and for PVE all it does is serve as another button we need to throw into our rotation. While the 9% damage is great, it feels like the new Rampage and it's not really fun because all it does is create something for us to push before every encounter and add in the GCD to press this button to refresh it.

- Killing Spree is great but many rogues complain that since it doesn't return us to the original target it can actually be a DPS loss when used.

- Shadow Dance is still pretty much a headache to deal with. I know you removed the cooldown aspect on it but is that really enough? When Sap can't be used if the target is in combat, we're left with Cheap Shot, Ambush and Garrote. I don't think anyone fears those three abilities being used in rapid succession as much as say, a Warrior with Bladestorm or Titan's Grip.

2) Does the development team think that Rogue mobility is fine right now?

- Hunger For Blood's PVP viability was completely removed so Mutilate has to rely on Vanish to break snares and Fleet Footed doesn't really help when we're being kited around so easily by just about every ranged or caster class that exists in the game.

- Shadowstep's viability was nerfed with 3.0, but for what reason? We were never given a reason or justification for the removal of using this ability while rooted. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that our 41 point talent is vastly inferior to a Warrior's Intercept which is trainable or a Feral Druid's Charge, which is only a 21 point ability.

- Sprint is an old, outdated ability that has no place in modern WoW. Ask Rogues when they use this ability effectively and you'll get some ridiculous answers. If you're not Combat, you need to wait while you're not snared to use it, and if you are Combat, you need to pray that someone else isn't going to apply a snare to you because they effectively negated our 3 minute cooldown, putting us right back at square one when it comes to catching out target. To make matters worse, you change the MAJOR glyph of it to increase the speed but reduce the duration. Nobody needs that long of a sprint, outside of Warsong Gulch games.

3) On Beta and on Live, many Rogues feel that Stealth is very weak compared to what it was before 3.0, as well as enemies targeting us while Vanished. Is there a bug with stealth again?

4) Is Relentless Strikes going to remain as it is currently? This change is still not sitting well with a large number of rogues.

5) I understand that the development team didn't want tanks to rely on avoidance as they have in the past but the recent change to the Agility : Dodge ratio has left rogues with very little dodge and at 80 we're only seeing about 15%. Seeing as how this is our primary defense against melee, isn't that a bit weak? Add to that fact that Hunters, a ranged class that wears mail armor, will get more dodge with their new melee Aspect, that just doesn't seem right. Can this be changed for rogues or other compensations for physical damage avoidance/reduction?

6) Hemorrhage is not an ability that is not supposed to replace Sinister Strike but it's not useful as it is currently and the Subtlety tree as a whole could use some work. Why does Devastate replace Sunder Armor for Warriors?

If these questions could be answered or even addressed with a simple yes/no/maybe, I would greatly appreciate it. I have played this character for 3 years now and have played the rogue class through the good times and the rough times.

However have to think about which character of mine I want to level first and I would like to make an educated decision based upon all of the ones I have available to me so far it seems that the rogue class will have to suffer again like in The Burning Crusade, where it took basically a year to get us tuned to a place where the class community was content with.

Even if you have to tell us news we don't want to hear, I think a lot of us would greatly appreciate the communication here.

P.S. Please don't nerf us into the ground. :)

Ghostcrawler

#6 - Nov. 4, 2008, 7:04 a.m.

Q u o t e:
- Hunger For Blood is a very lackluster PVP talent that very few rogues go for and for PVE all it does is serve as another button we need to throw into our rotation. While the 9% damage is great, it feels like the new Rampage and it's not really fun because all it does is create something for us to push before every encounter and add in the GCD to press this button to refresh it.

The tree was balanced around the original, much more powerful (and in retrospect TOO powerful) Hunger for Blood. We think it is a little lackluster in PvP and are talking about ways to juice it without overhauling the tree. We can overhaul the tree if that's what it takes, but it will just take that much longer and Assassination seems to be okay in PvP and PvE for the moment.

Q u o t e:
- Killing Spree is great but many rogues complain that since it doesn't return us to the original target it can actually be a DPS loss when used.

We do hear that complaint a lot. It's not supposed to be the ultimate AE ability. It's supposed to be decent at AE and really good vs. single targets. I do think screwing up your facing is a little annoying though and is something we'll try to fix.

Q u o t e:
- Shadow Dance is still pretty much a headache to deal with. I know you removed the cooldown aspect on it but is that really enough? When Sap can't be used if the target is in combat, we're left with Cheap Shot, Ambush and Garrote. I don't think anyone fears those three abilities being used in rapid succession as much as say, a Warrior with Bladestorm or Titan's Grip.

I agree it can be a headache from the UI standpoint, but it's an neat ability overall IMO. The multiple Ambushes alone can add up. As far as the UI goes, we are trying to implement either a true stealth bar or some kind of pseudo steal bar to make it easier to use.

Q u o t e:
- Hunger For Blood's PVP viability was completely removed so Mutilate has to rely on Vanish to break snares and Fleet Footed doesn't really help when we're being kited around so easily by just about every ranged or caster class that exists in the game.

Mutilate is in a little bit of a place in PvP where you rely more on your team, but in return you get really high damage. So you don't have as many CC breaks, but you do tend to kill things faster as a trade-off. One change that will help is increasing the proc rate of Crippling Poison to 50%.

Q u o t e:
- Shadowstep's viability was nerfed with 3.0, but for what reason? We were never given a reason or justification for the removal of using this ability while rooted. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that our 41 point talent is vastly inferior to a Warrior's Intercept which is trainable or a Feral Druid's Charge, which is only a 21 point ability.

We think Shadowstep made rogues too dominant in PvP (similar to the Cloak change). Of course at the same time everyone got new tools to counter the pre-nerf version of the rogue, so it's possible we went too far. We do caution you not to make too much of comparisons in abilities between different classes -- you need to look at your abilities within the context of other tools (e.g. Cloak, Vanish, Crippling Poison, etc.)

Q u o t e:
- Sprint is an old, outdated ability that has no place in modern WoW. Ask Rogues when they use this ability effectively and you'll get some ridiculous answers. If you're not Combat, you need to wait while you're not snared to use it...,

I think there is some truth here, but we did lower the base cooldown to try and compensate. Part of being a good rogue is knowing when you can safely use your abilities to get the most out of them, and that includes Sprint. That's just part of the kit of the class. But we can keep an eye on it.

Q u o t e:
3) On Beta and on Live, many Rogues feel that Stealth is very weak compared to what it was before 3.0, as well as enemies targeting us while Vanished. Is there a bug with stealth again?

There are some mob abilities that seem to be causing stealth to break prematurely, but you seem to mostly be talking about PvP here, so I assume that's not it. It's always hard to figure out the state of Vanish and stealth because there are always so many players quick to say "LOLZ VANISH NEVAR WORKS," so we can't always detect if anything has changed. We are definitely hearing more mumblings than usual lately (though usual is also typically really high) so we're looking to see if there are any new problems.

Ghostcrawler

#7 - Nov. 4, 2008, 7:04 a.m.

Q u o t e:
4) Is Relentless Strikes going to remain as it is currently? This change is still not sitting well with a large number of rogues.

Based on its power, the alternatives where nerfing the talent or getting rid of it. At least having to take 5 points in every tree is better than having to go fairly deep into a couple of them.

Q u o t e:
5) I understand that the development team didn't want tanks to rely on avoidance as they have in the past but the recent change to the Agility : Dodge ratio has left rogues with very little dodge and at 80 we're only seeing about 15%.

This is something we're talking about a lot. Melee in general seem to be better at countering rogues, and we probably haven't seen much of the hardest hitting one yet. Rogues won't typically tak mitigation talents that aren't also bundled with dps (except Cheat Death), so we may need to rework a few talents here and there. We definitely don't want rogues just ignoring players that are attacking them so that they can burst down a target. We don't want them to feel like clothies either. Definitely something we have concerns about and we'll watch and see what happens when we get level 80 death knights.

Q u o t e:
6) Hemorrhage is not an ability that is not supposed to replace Sinister Strike but it's not useful as it is currently and the Subtlety tree as a whole could use some work. Why does Devastate replace Sunder Armor for Warriors?

Hemo doesn't replace Sinister Strike. Backstab does. We have talked about a talent that applies the Hemo debuff to Backstab (like your Sunder example) just so there's no confusion about which is the right button to push in PvE. We added Hemo to Surprise Attacks mostly for alternate hybrid specs, if that makes sense.

I know there is a fair amount of concern about the future of the class (as there is with every class), but we think rogues are in a pretty good spot for both PvE and PvP. If I don't respond to rogue issues as much as the community would like, it's probably because we aren't as worried about them as much in general (though I did mention some specific areas above).

Ghostcrawler

#101 - Nov. 4, 2008, 7 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Aren't you then intentionally pigeon holding us into specific make ups for pvp? Why should our one spec be more reliant on *another* player than any one elses' spec? You've stated numerous times that in pve you're trying to make no class required because of buffs, debuffs, etc and leveling the playing field as it were. Here in pvp though you're telling us basically that if we want to spec mutilate we're going to NEED certain classes to facilitate us, not because of any single rogues specific skill, but because of the design of the tree you've implemented.

I think you’re reading too much in to what I said. Assassination is giving up some of its “tricks” in order to do more damage. You become a little closer to a shaman or warrior. That means if you get CC’d or something, you are more vulnerable than other rogues, which in turn means you might need your allies to bail you out. We don’t think that makes the spec broken or even inferior – it’s just a different play style.

Q u o t e:
While I understand that you think Assassination is fine in PvE and PvP at the moment, I just want to comment that since the tree does not reflect the original power and playstyle you had designed for it, that at 80 it will become very mundane (as many people have already stated). I mean, HFB is the Assassination tree, and when a 51pt talent isn't fun to use, I think something needs to be reworked.

Ultimately, I think it will be. If we messed with it now, we would probably have to nerf Assassination somewhere else to make up for it. At this point we want to see rogues at 80 in PvE and PvP. As you can see, some rogues are saying they’re doomed and some are saying they’re fine. If Assassination is weak, then modifying some of those talents will be even more important. We do care about interesting rotations and abilities, but at the end of the day, if dps is too low on a dps class, then nobody will stick around to try the fun abilities, and if the class is OP, that will become the fun part of the class for people. While it’s not true of all rogues by any stretch, I have found the class more willing to spec where the damage is compared to other classes. Some Frost mages just love Frost and will stick with it no matter how it fares. While some rogues do have their favorite tree, a lot of them are willing to respect to whatever is suspected to do the most damage. Because it also tends to be a mathy class, it’s sometimes easier to figure out which build will do the most damage than for other classes.

Q u o t e:
This quote was posted shortly after the adjustments to assassination and combat were made. Seeing how subtlety was doing less damage than a hybrid dps spec in beta, I'm guessing that was the tree you were referring to as the "third". No vital changes were made to subtlety since that post. Hybrid dps specs offer both dps and utility. You've already made it quite clear that hemorrhage's debuff is considered utility to some degree. Is there a reason why subtlety can't offer both dps and utility that is at least on par with what a hybrid can provide?

I believe I was talking about Combat at the time, but I’d have to go back and check the date. The problem with Subtelty is that it’s extremely dependent on Honor Among Thieves, which is in turn very dependent on the composition of your group. It’s harder for us to predict what kind of crit rates your group is going to have – there is a big spread. We have certainly seen cases where Subtlelty does good damage. The question is how often those cases come up.

Q u o t e:
lol, ghostcrawler, don't you know how to use good grammer?

I don’t spell check at all – I’m just relying on memory. The words are very tiny and I tend to write fast so that I can respond to a lot of posts.

And I hate to do this, butâ€¦ it’s “grammar”. :)

Q u o t e:
Any chance every class can get to a point where the "fun factor" is considered instead of just viability GC?

Absolutely, but (per above) viability comes first. Also, fun is highly subjective and players are typically going to disagree about whether particular mechanics are fun or not. I’d say most Prot warriors are pretty happy with their tree now (though not all), but man it was challenging getting to that point. There were a lot of Prot warriors cursing the class designers across the Internet. ïŠ

Players have also learned that waving around “fun factor” is a useful ploy to get my attention so I have been trying not to respond to it as much. That isn’t to say fun isn’t critically important. It is. But it’s also like tossing a grenade to win an argument – make this change or I won’t have fun. I’m not accusing you of being manipulative in this manner, but it is something of which we have to be mindful.

Ghostcrawler

#192 - Nov. 5, 2008, 7:08 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Does Blizzard have a way of looking at historical data of parties and raids from all sizes from 5 to 40? If so, do they look at this data to determine class representation? For me, if you look at the class representation in raids against the population percentages of these classes, the picture of class balance becomes clear.

I can tell you that because of the recent patches, it has increasingly become more difficult for pure DPS classes to get slots into raids. There isnt a more pure DPS class in the game than Rogues as in Rogues dont do anything else for a raid other than DPS. They do have a minor role in interrupting but this is not unique to rogues as there are other classes that do this. Hence, the rise of DPS in hybrid classes will effect rogues more than any other class.

Yes, we collect a great deal of that sort of data. However, we think it is way, way too soon to draw any meaningful conclusions from the changes. You are talking about players who have barely plumbed the depths of their own class changes inviting classes with a lot of other changes within a landscape where class balance and abilities change every patch. Once Lich King is out and players start grouping at 80 we'll be able to more accurately see trends.

Q u o t e:
Does any other class have a tree the devs have acknowledged as non-viable and slated for a fix in a later content patch?

Just so you know, these are the type of comments that make me reluctant to be so forthcoming with our current thoughts.

We wouldn't ship the game with non-viable specs. But this being Blizzard we always think there are ways to improve every aspect of the game.

I also predict that it's entirely likely that the concerns we are all going to be talking about in a month are not the same list of concerns that players are bringing up now. The game has a penchant for going off in directions nobody expects.