What is with Rogues getting to use Axes?

#0 - June 19, 2009, 4:42 p.m.

I understand that Rogues are a class of deep mediation and through this exuberant amounts of time figuring out what life is about they might come to find the secret about using one handed axes but seriously what is the point of this change?

Not only did rogues have a huge arsenal of weapons to use, from stealing fist weapons from Shamans to taking tank weapons because lolololol it has hit but nooooo that was not enough, there had to be 23525627624 daggers in the game from every hard mode boss and end game boss just in case that one rogue in the raid didn't have any weapon to use for his third 'pure" DPS off spec.

There is not a single Arms DPS Axe in Heroic Ulduar, yet Arms can use it, Fury can use it, DK's can use it, Ret pallies can use it.

There are 2 ilevel 239 daggers in the game and 4 ilevel 232 daggers in the game. There is 1 ilevel 232 Axe in the game that is itemized for a DK tank pretty much. One class uses daggers, maybe 2 with enhc shamans in their offhands and 3 use 2 handed Axes with different specs in each meaning that in a raid the blood DK wants one, the Frost DK wants one, the Unholy DK wants one, the Arms warrior wants one, the Fury warrior wants one and the DK tank wants one. When daggers drop now the guild is out some Abyss' because the rogue wants it for an offset. It's really astonishing. But it's ok, we will all just use the same polearm along with ferals and hunters.

I mean at the very least make Shamans able to use swords but just rogues getting axes is just confusing to me, can anyone figure out what the point is?

Ghostcrawler

#2 - June 19, 2009, 4:46 p.m.

We have trouble dropping one-handed weapons in raids because there is so little overlap among the classes. Shamans can't use swords. Rogues can't (currently) use axes. DKs can't use fists. That means just about everyone gets maces.

We took an informal vote and everyone here thought shamans with swords went against a lot of the traditions of the class in the lore, and DKs with fists was kind of weird too. Rogues seemed like the class that would pretty much pick up any weapon in a fight -- they use a broken bottle in at least one notorious case.

Ghostcrawler

#282 - June 22, 2009, 6:51 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Q u o t e:

I'm not sure you're entirely correct.

They put Sword and Axe in the same combat specialization.

What this says to me, is that there will be a plethora of slow axes, and then quick swords for the off-hand.

This means that if all of the axes are 1h and not just main hand, Shamans will be fine.

I have seen your assumption made my numerous people. But it's only an assumption. If they implement it then you are right and Shaman will be fine. This does not help in the short term however. But at least we will know that a change is coming.

If this is what Blizz is intending then they should come out and say it. If they do this then 75% of these posts will go away. All I want is to have some options to choose from.

Most of the axes will be one-hand, not main-hand. The reason we make the fists MH or OH isn't as a special favor to rogues or anything. It is usually because the art is designed to be left-handed or right-handed and looks really odd in the wrong hand (this is true of swords sometimes too). An axe is an axe though so we can make most if not all of them one-handed. We will drop more axes with this change -- this is why we are making the change. Shamans in Ulduar felt like there weren't enough axes. We want to be able to give them more options.

I'm sorry you don't agree with our interpretation of the lore. I ran it past the other design leads just to make sure that shamans with swords was something that went against the world of World of Warcraft. They said it did. Game balance and lore are both important to the game. Sometimes one has to give or the other has to give, but in this case we think we have a workable solution. We can change Drek's weapons though if that helps. :)