December 07 - State of the Rogue Address

Complaints about the rogue class are mounting up on the forums, but once again the complaints seem to be entirely misplaced.

"I can't beat an equal-geared warrior!"
"I can't beat SL/SL warlocks!"

Wrong. You can beat them and should, in most cases. Resilience is not as much of an issue as it was in previous seasons, IMO. I can tear down a 450 resilience SL warlock PDQ. That's not to say that they are easy, or that I can't lose. I can, they are a dangerous class. As are warriors. But, they are far from unbeatable.

IMO, rogues have the advantage over every "non-healing" class in the game, except for, perhaps, a well-played frost mage.

So, where are rogues weak? They are weak against certain brands of healers. Healing classes are generally easy for rogues until they pass a certain gear threshold. Then, they can become nightmares, the worst of which being the resto-druid.

In a typical arena match, what determines who wins a 3v3 or 5v5 match? Class composition is obviously a primary factor, as is gear, and then relative skill. After that, what is more important? Good DPS or good healing? The answer is good healing. Healing wins matches, not DPS.

The best teams I've seen use a combination of CC and class abilities to help mitigate damage to themselves so they don't overburden their healers. Doing damage is a secondary concern and something that you do when the other teams reveals a chink in their armor. But, make no mistake. Healing is the backbone of the best teams. So much so, that teams will take out threats to a healer's mana pool as a high priority.

So, you are left with long matches which are not dependent on DPS until late in a match when a rogue's mobility is at its worst. Shadowstep was a nice fix to give rogues something similar to a warriors intercept. However, you have to make too many sacrifices in other places to get it.

Do warriors have to spec to get intercept? Do you see what I'm getting at here, Blizzard? At this point in time, I just can't see bringing a rogue into a 5v5 over an equivalently geared and well-played hunter, just for example. A marks PvP specced hunter brings CC in the form of frost trap, imp concussive shots, imp wingclips, and silences as well as being a threat to the opposing teams mana pool and buffs. And, to top it off they can do DPS, when needed, independent of mobility.

So, rogues are still the masters of 1v1 in the BGs and can do well in 2v2 and 3v3 (with very specific line-ups that require a very good healer), but are still quite weak for 5v5 IMO.

As for me, I'm going to work on a hunter alt.

Rogue Forum Topic of The Day: Welfare Epics

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3547621734&sid=1&pageNo=1

My take on things:

I really love some people on this forum. Arrogant, self-absored, and illogical. They try to derive individual worth out of what their team or guild has accomplished. And they try to demean others individually for what their team or guild has not accomplished.

Arena is NOT a primary measure of individual skill. It's a gear and class composition check first. Furthermore, a skilled player grouped with keyboard turning fresh L70 friends is not going to ascend up the ranks no matter how good they may be individually.

As far as getting gear. Getting gear via PvP is MUCH EASIER than getting gear via PvE. Actually trying to compare which one requires more skill is absolutely moronic since they require different skill sets.

If you think otherwise, then I'll have to ask what your end-game experience is. If you haven't been in a cutting-edge guild attempting content that has not been killed before, then you really have no place to speak. Dying repeatedly to learn a new encounter that may or may not be "tuned" correctly by Blizzard takes true f'n dedication.

I have much respect for the people in cutting-edge guilds and this is coming from someone who has mostly been dedicated to PvP. They quite literally beta-test the game for you.

More Resto Druid Conversation.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3271126490&sid=1&pageNo=1

The topic that just keeps on giving.

It's really interesting how so many people can have different perspectives of balance in the game. Most of this comes from their own experience, I'd say.

I've had my differences with Ming, some of which may be of legendary status by now... but I've always considered him to be a good rogue who is very knowledgable about the class. Sometimes I disagree with him, but usually not. And, Ming agrees that resto druids exist that can just flat out tank the best a rogue can throw at them in CASTER form. What this means is that if they are just toying with the rogue and if they actually used their full abilities it would be even worse.

Sure, these resto druids might be rare. But, they exist and as others learn this is possible their numbers will increase.

Nerf Hemo!

Nerf Hemo! But, restoration druids? NO PROBLEM.


NerfHemo.wmv

Clearly hemo does too much damage for this PvE restoration druid to handle! I'm kicking out around 500 DPS sustained DPS in this fight (most fluctuation between 400-600 DPS). But once the druid gets their instacast HoTs up, I can barely dent the druid's health. Strong healing is fine. What takes this way over the fucking line is the mana regeneration. You have instacast HoT healing doing more than 600 hps AND essentially an infinite supply of mana?

Please... this shit is broken. It's far more broken than hemo is, that's for sure. Will Blizzard continue to ignore this? Most likely.

I was thinking to myself. How could I possible take this druid down solo? My only idea was to use an AR/prep build and just absolutely cooldown dump at the beginning of the fight. You'd have to kill the druid outright before they get those instacast HoTs up and the only way I see doing that is a long duration "stunlock" utilizing blind/sap and two ARs (that's assuming no trinket, of course - heh).

Then, I came to the rogue board later in the day and saw that AR was being taken off of prep (something I agree with BTW - I disagree with the give-and-take-back hemo buff-nerf).

I posted this clip on an internal forum yesterday as well. Without previously talking about it, one of my friends said that the only way a rogue could take down that druid was with AR/Prep, agreeing independently with my earlier assessment.

Then I got to say in an ominous voice, "you haven't heard yet, have you?"

I've always wanted to do that. Keke.

In hindsight, I could have used EA here but I don't generally bother with a druid since they can just go into bear form anyway. So, I use my CPs to keep rupture and snd up. I've never seen a resto druid just stand there and take it like this without going into form before, so it didn't cross my mind. With that mana regen I don't think EA would have made a difference though.

My apologies for the music, I took one of the most annoying songs I could find and sped it up to reflect my annoyance with the fight.

Also, before my numerous lovable nitpicking fans point out that I blinded while the druid was dotted, I'll point out that was using blind to disrupt the root cast as it is more reliable than kick and gouge in a laggy enviroment. I went LD about 2 minutes after this fight.

BTW, an alliance paladin came by and the druid didn't get the GY back. Mission accomplished, heh.