Updated! With solutions I though off, and were covered by many other people in this thread, or though up by them. Also, some clarfications.
Before I begin, I'm obviously going to cover the PVP issues, and I hope this doesn't seem like a pointless complain thread, as I'll try my best to be as clear and constructive as I can. Basically I'm trying to get constructive opinions of others on this topic, and I thought this would be the best place for it. The following is written based on the new changes Blizzard has released about the PVP trinket change, and I am judging from what they said in THAT post. Also, a few points of what I'm talking about, with the trinket changes, is somewhat covered in another post made. In any case, to the main post, which is going to be very, very long.
Rogues, are arguably one of the weakest classes when it comes to 5 vs 5's. Our damage isn't top notch in the long run. Our survivabiltiy is a joke when our cooldowns are down. Our CC we bring is limited, and almost all of it can be removed, with the exception of sap, which is VERY easy to avoid. Almost all other classes bring a certain "ace in the hole" besides us, whether it's damage, cc, healing, or a certain extremely powerful class only ability.
Now, I'm going to specify the previous points I made.
First of all, rogues are a very powerful class in the first 15-20 seconds in the game, when our cooldowns are up. As time goes on, our power diminishes. Rogues are THE most cooldown dependant class in the game, in all aspects of PVP. As the game drags on, our damage, mobility, cc, all packaged with cooldowns, are gone for the most part. Meanwhile, a warrior is hitting as hard as ever, smashing faces in with his Deep Thunder/Stormherald, and much superior stats. We have no reason we shouldn't be attacked, and as soon as they force us to blow what we have, we can get assist trained into oblivion.
Our abilities are not unique in any way. Other classes can do DPS, and much more, while having better burst or sustained. Other classes can provide either a deadly debuff making them get the brunt of damage, windfury to make warriors deadlier, or provide something like bloodlust, turning every member of your team into a powerhouse. We have expose armor, which reduces armor...by less than 3000 full talented, 5 points. Our only viable cc, blind, can be removed by 3 classes, 1 of which is on practically on almost every arena team worth a shit, another who are very common. We dont provide any lifesavers like a healthstone, or a shield, or a heal, or really anything. Our stuns aren't apparantly with trinkets, and stun resist gem/talent, and we aren't even close to being as good interrupters as a mage per say. To make it even worse, the few seconds we COULD buy for our team wtih a well placed blind, now a good player can instantly remove that from HIMSELF within a split second. No more waiting for it to be dispelled.
Despite all of this, there is though one style of 5 vs 5 play we can fit in too, and that is the Insta Gib team. Stack around 4 DPS with 1 paladin, with heavy CC, who can nuke a target down in a few seconds, and you get what I'm talking about. The only qualifying tournament teams in the U.S. and Europe taht werent forced to play rogues used that set up. The #1 team in Europe's qualifyer brackets happened to use a rogue, 2 warlocks, a shadowpriest, and a paladin set up. The only thing is, they only gott to #1 when Grammer Police (running a warrior, shaman, paladin, priest, mage cookie cutter set up) quit. That's because a coordinated team with a more balanced set up, who are good enough to manage outlasting can easily beat an "insta gib" set up. Sure, they might lose for the first few matches, when they dont know what they're up against, but afterwards the "insta gib" team doesn't really stand a chance.
Now, the things we were good at were 1 vs 1 (to an extent), 2 vs 2, and 3 vs 3. Of course not as prominent as warlocks per say in any of these, we held our own. Now with the PVP trinket changes, as far as we've been told, it's going to get worse. There are some cc's that everybody and their parents can break, thanks to the PVP trinket/racials, but then you have abilities like blind and cyclone, the latter almost making or breaking a class, and blind being a rogue's most useful CC, on a 3 minute CD, and even with 3 classes who can remove it, it's still a very good CC. As mentioned, we are being denied the privelage of even that, which makes us even worse, at the few things we were good at.
Now, for the latter part of this post, you may argue that none of the things I mentioned really matter. Well, duels obviously don't as far as gameplay goes, although I personally think it's a great way to understand you classes, other classes, and up your reflexes. 2 vs 2's are obviously very rock-paper-scissors like, but 3 vs 3, while still having some of those flaws 2's have, are still more entertaining, more balanced, and you can make money off it with a top notch team in WSVG
. Even as a non hybrid, we are still not the best of anything , "good" to mediocre" at some things.
In any case, I'd first like to see the reception to this thread before I put forth any solutions. Besides, are far as I know my points suck and you guys stopped half way through this thread was so bad. If your still reading, one final note.
This thread takes in the problems for a rogue only, as I've been playing one for over 2 and half years, going through a decent amount of PVE progress, while mainly putting forth my time into PVP. I don't play a ton, and I have been inactive for a good amount of time, or played very little in some cases, which is why my gear isn't exactly the best. I would say that I know my class very well in PVP though, Think of this thread what it will, but I definately don't mean it as the end all and be all of things, nor do I think that whatever I say is undoubtedly correct.
A few people I have noticed think we shouldnt compare ourselves to warriors. Let's see, warriors are the only other pure melee DPS class in the game, just with much, MUCH higher prominence in almost every aspect of PVP (and of course in PVE, but not as melee DPS usually). Since people here are taking 1's seriously, rogues have it extremely bad in duels vs well geared people, and warriors themselves aren't the best either. 2 vs 2, warrior and paladin has an even greater edge with the new pvp trinket, while most rogue combos took a HUGE nerf because of it. 3 vs 3, most top teams include a warrior, much more frequenlty than a rogue, and 5 vs 5, it's no competition.
Now tell me, why is it so unreasonable that rogues would like to be as useful as warriors?
Now, as for solutions, Lane hit many of them right on the spot.
Mobility: We have terrible mobility, we can get kited very easily. Our only speed boost is on a 5 second cooldown, with a really long duration that we dont need for the most part. On the other hand, warriors have intercept...
Solution:
Sprint is changed to a 30 second cooldown with a 5 second duration. Imp sprint now also reduces the sprint CD by 5/10 seconds. Ther Season 3 gladiator set reduces sprint by 5 seconds.
Damage: Warriors and warlocks if given the chance, both do much higher damage than us as tim goes by. It doesnt matter if warriors dont have infinite rage, but numbers don't lie.
Solutions: Here's quite the assortment of solutions. Allow EA to be talented to provide 3/6% damage boost, undo normalization, let MH weapons have a slower speed, let windfury work as well as poisons, make some sense out of other classes being able to have much better defensive AND offensive stats than us. Maybe combined a bit too imba, but as a melee DPS class, with low armor, there should be NO reason why we shouldnt be outdoing everybody elses damage by a long shot when we're actually on the target.
CC: Now with the new trinkets, our CC has gone to dust. Before, 3 classes could remove our what I'd say would be the most powerful CC, blind. Now, everybody can remove it. Sap with all the requirements couldnt be even considered a good CC, since it was very rare you would get it off. We also can't silence from 32 feet away. Mages for example, not only have better survival as a cltoh class, and better burst (especially if they're ap frost), they have the best CC in the game. Sure poly can be broken, but it can be spammed from 32 yards away, breakign the sync of the opponents team.
Solution: Give us some sort of powerful CC. Blind is on a 3 minute cooldown for most arena specs, but there is absolutley NOTHING about it that justifies it being that long of a CD. I dont know how , but gives us SOMETHING, or make us stronger in other fields to compensate for it.
Group Synergy: The most important factor, a grand total of nearly everything, and then some. How well do we fit in with most groups in 5's? There is no decent balanced group with a rogue on it. None. The only group we belong to, as stated is Insta gib groups, who most balanced groups will be able to outplay, outmanuever, and outlast.
Solution: Basically the last 3 solutions. I can't think of anything for now that would be a good addition but won't overpower us. Let us have better survivablity so our healers dont have to go crazy with their mana on us? Give us a powerful debuff near the likes of MS? Let us increase the damage of our group by a long shot? I don't know what, but I'm sure some creative minds can think of something perfect.
Thusly, I close this gigantic wall of text. I think everything is covered as far as PVP goes.