In which Vulajin pretends he has interesting things to say about Rogue theorycraft and the current state of Rogues in WoW.
Alpha, Beta, and Roguecraft
Posted 07/30/08 at 1:26 PM by Vulajin
So I finally got around to becoming a Patron on this site, which means I now have a fancy new blog with which I can act like anybody cares about my opinion on rogues. I'm sure all three of the people who will read this will find it highly informative and interesting.
A first blog post usually starts with something like an introduction, so here goes. I'm Vulajin, I've been a rogue for 2.5 years, and I think I've got a pretty good idea how the class works in the context of PvE. Please don't talk to me about PvP, I'm a miserable failure in that area. I'm in the guild on Mal'Ganis (US), it consists of a lot of people like me except that they're not trolls.
If you're a rogue, you've probably read my article (Rogue: PvE DPS) either in its entirety or quoted by someone on the WoW Rogue Forums. If not, go read it. Each time someone reads it, I become increasingly capable of living with the fact that I spend ungodly amounts of my waking time running numbers and making spreadsheets for a computer game.
Anyway, enough of that self-indulgent crap -- but don't worry, I'm still going to talk about myself. I've spent the past 2.5 months or so playing the alpha/beta of Wrath of the Lich King, attempting to theorycraft the state of rogues at 80 while passing on some of the suggestions I think are most important for our success at that stage. Before I go on about this, here's a link to the big post I made on the beta forums summarizing my views:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...13699&sid=2000
As is apparent from our proposed talents thus far, Blizzard really wants us using daggers. I mean, they really want us using daggers. In BC we have a billion daggers dropping everywhere and a very small minority of rogues using them. No other class would have reason to primarily use daggers. This is definitely a design problem.
But the problem with using daggers is, and always has been, positional requirements. I can get behind the mob just fine and avoid parries as swords, but somehow when I'm daggers the game always finds a way to tell me that I'm not behind the mob. Sometimes in my dreams I hear faint whispers of "You must be behind your target." At night I wake up in a cold sweat with the image of a Spitfire Totem hanging just on the periphery of my vision.
I can't think of a more unnecessary game mechanic at this time. Perhaps back when Backstab and Ambush were capable of inflicting very large burst (one- or two-shotting people), it was necessary to have positional requirements to limit their usage. Now neither of those abilities deals anywhere near that kind of damage, but both are still hampered by "Must be behind the target." Same with Mutilate.
What's the point? There is no more skill inherent in a dagger rogue getting behind the mob than there is in a sword rogue getting behind the mob. You get screwed more if there's latency, you get screwed more if the mob moves a lot, and you get screwed more if it's hard to find the back of the target. That's all. Even if the DPS of dagger builds is exactly equal to that of sword builds, which build are most people going to pick? And alternatively, if the DPS of dagger builds were higher than that of sword builds -- would that be fair? Reward the dagger-user for doing exactly what the sword-user is doing, as long as he doesn't get screwed by the RNG?
Anyway, I don't want to get too much into repeating my own talking points from the above-linked thread. Right now, unfortunately, there's not much else to talk about for rogues. Aside from getting our talents (most of which are still non-functional) and some increased coefficients on finishing moves (more on these in a future post), there have been no changes specifically targeting rogues in either alpha or beta. We do benefit from the really cool new energy regen model. I've given this a bit of a shot and, while it's a bit different from what I'm used to doing, it's definitely going to be pretty nice.
I'm just waiting for some actual rogue changes and developer insights. The goal of this blog will be to discuss those things, whether or not people are actually reading it.
A first blog post usually starts with something like an introduction, so here goes. I'm Vulajin, I've been a rogue for 2.5 years, and I think I've got a pretty good idea how the class works in the context of PvE. Please don't talk to me about PvP, I'm a miserable failure in that area. I'm in the guild
If you're a rogue, you've probably read my article (Rogue: PvE DPS) either in its entirety or quoted by someone on the WoW Rogue Forums. If not, go read it. Each time someone reads it, I become increasingly capable of living with the fact that I spend ungodly amounts of my waking time running numbers and making spreadsheets for a computer game.
Anyway, enough of that self-indulgent crap -- but don't worry, I'm still going to talk about myself. I've spent the past 2.5 months or so playing the alpha/beta of Wrath of the Lich King, attempting to theorycraft the state of rogues at 80 while passing on some of the suggestions I think are most important for our success at that stage. Before I go on about this, here's a link to the big post I made on the beta forums summarizing my views:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...13699&sid=2000
As is apparent from our proposed talents thus far, Blizzard really wants us using daggers. I mean, they really want us using daggers. In BC we have a billion daggers dropping everywhere and a very small minority of rogues using them. No other class would have reason to primarily use daggers. This is definitely a design problem.
But the problem with using daggers is, and always has been, positional requirements. I can get behind the mob just fine and avoid parries as swords, but somehow when I'm daggers the game always finds a way to tell me that I'm not behind the mob. Sometimes in my dreams I hear faint whispers of "You must be behind your target." At night I wake up in a cold sweat with the image of a Spitfire Totem hanging just on the periphery of my vision.
I can't think of a more unnecessary game mechanic at this time. Perhaps back when Backstab and Ambush were capable of inflicting very large burst (one- or two-shotting people), it was necessary to have positional requirements to limit their usage. Now neither of those abilities deals anywhere near that kind of damage, but both are still hampered by "Must be behind the target." Same with Mutilate.
What's the point? There is no more skill inherent in a dagger rogue getting behind the mob than there is in a sword rogue getting behind the mob. You get screwed more if there's latency, you get screwed more if the mob moves a lot, and you get screwed more if it's hard to find the back of the target. That's all. Even if the DPS of dagger builds is exactly equal to that of sword builds, which build are most people going to pick? And alternatively, if the DPS of dagger builds were higher than that of sword builds -- would that be fair? Reward the dagger-user for doing exactly what the sword-user is doing, as long as he doesn't get screwed by the RNG?
Anyway, I don't want to get too much into repeating my own talking points from the above-linked thread. Right now, unfortunately, there's not much else to talk about for rogues. Aside from getting our talents (most of which are still non-functional) and some increased coefficients on finishing moves (more on these in a future post), there have been no changes specifically targeting rogues in either alpha or beta. We do benefit from the really cool new energy regen model. I've given this a bit of a shot and, while it's a bit different from what I'm used to doing, it's definitely going to be pretty nice.
I'm just waiting for some actual rogue changes and developer insights. The goal of this blog will be to discuss those things, whether or not people are actually reading it.
Total Comments 18
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Ambush needs to stay a behind the target attack, to keep the flavor.
I think it would be interesting to see what happens if Backstab and Mutilate had their positional requirements fixed. |
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With with excessive itemization and talents pointing us in the direction of dagger specs, I think something needs to be changed to really hook people in.
For leveling especially, if Blizzard is going to throw daggers in our faces they really have to make people want to use them. Given the choice between using my 103 DPS swords and some 110 DPS dagger while leveling, I'd take the sword so I wouldn't have to think so much when playing. AFK SS spam is a lot easier and probably more time efficient than leveling with daggers, even if they are better stats-wise. |
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As a high latency rogue player, positional requirements have to go. I specced daggers only once at level 70 and went back to some non-positional requirement spec in the same hour. It really is that annoying.
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Right, that's another problem, is that positional requirements make leveling with daggers needlessly much of a chore. Great, you can burst a lot with Mutilate, but you either need to Stealth in slowly to get behind the mob in the first place, or use energy to stun/Gouge the thing so you can get to its back. Unlike in PvP, mobs react instantaneously; there is no such thing as outwitting a mob to get to its back, if it is targeting you.
I don't put a lot of stock in the flavor of positioning requirements for all of the attacks that have them, but I concede that it is reasonably within the flavor of the rogue class that some attacks would require being behind the target. Regardless, I think it makes zero design sense to have all of the primary dagger specials require positioning. |
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I think the positional requirements are fine for most mobs provided you aren't running into any latency weirdness or your tanks are doing something odd. Remember, for the longest time dagger specs were great, and were pretty much the top for the non-humans (at least up until mid-Naxx or so). You only really need to have the perfect positioning once within a 4 second window (or at least that was the case then, to ensure your energy didn't cap out, if your dagger build has an energy returning talent then this window may shrink).
I think the solution is to change the mob hit boxes to help negate the problems that come up when a player has some latency and/or the mob is mobile. It makes more sense than allowing frontal backstabs, and it won't cause complaints over possible PvP unbalancing. On another note, I never really got good at positioning on my rogue until I started to PvP constantly with a dagger spec. The latency/positioning problems are far more acute there and you learn to quickly move and get your shots in. I can't think of a way to make leveling as daggers less painful. Since modifying the abilities that you're going to use to gain positioning would have fairly dramatic effects on PvP balance on the top end. |
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My point is not that it's not possible to get positioning. My point is more that it's an arbitrary requirement that only serves to penalize people in situations where they don't really have control.
There's not really any requirement that the ability be called "Backstab" if it happened to be changed not to require positioning. There's no specific reason that "Mutilate" only makes sense from behind either. It was argued to me last night regarding PvP balance that positional requirements for these attacks are a check against high mobility. Until now, Mutilate lacked that mobility, which is why it was not played as extensively at the high end, but now that Hunger for Blood is in, it might be overpowered to both have that mobility buff and also be able to Mutilate from any direction. In that case I would say either find some other way to give Mutilate rogues added mobility without being overpowered in conjunction with non-positional-dependent Mutilate, or else just rebalance so that the burst isn't excessive (I don't think it is anyway, but that's not an expert opinion). It's silly to be designed such that you can unleash ridiculous burst if and only if you can overcome severe mobility issues and positional requirements to initiate the attack. |
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That's why I think a hit box modification would do just as well to accomplish what you want. A hit box mod for mobs won't have nearly as far reaching a balance change as removing the positioning requirements. Even on mobile fights it was never difficult to maintain the correct position barring some sort of unlucky AoE patch or poor tank positioning, and you weren't really penalized unless for some reason it took you more than a few seconds to find correct positioning. Annoying yes, but you don't really lose anything unless your energy was getting capped by missing backstab opportunities. The only fight I can remember positioning truly screwing dagger rogues was C'thun. I guess Thaddius may have, though I was using swords (human) and never heard complaints about him like I did C'thun so I'm not sure. In TBC I can think of a few fights that would give you some trouble, but the majority are still something resembling a tank and spank during the phases where you're actually on the boss.
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Having done Thaddius at 70 when I was specced Mutilate, I can imagine exactly how much a dagger rogue would have wanted to end his own life having to do that fight.
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I am to believe that your thread on official forums changed something:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...o=1&sid=2000#9  |
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There's been plenty of complaining from a lot of quarters about that, so I can hardly claim credit for it. Hopefully some of my more rogue-centric points will have an impact, though.
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I'm still not sure about your comments on positional requirements.
I mean - due to stupid model scaling and bosses five times taller than us it is already kinky enough that we start fight using garrote on boss ankle instead of throat. If we will also be putting able to backstab from front instead of from behind, the skill may as well be named "strange imba hit nr 2" - I'm afraid that it can take the fun away from the game. Hitting from behind is somehow part of lore I agree that positional fight unmet requirements must be more clearly anounced to the player, and it includes both "must be behind" and "not in range" messages, but they should stay, in my opinion. |
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I really think that dagger positionning requirements add more skill to the rogue pve gameplay. It also enables players to know that they are really behind the target (really useful on chtun-like mobs), allowing them to maximize their white dps. So I don't really agree with your idea of removing those requirements.
I've been raiding all late 60 content as a combat dagger spec, constantly on top of the dmg meter. But I've to say that thaddius was a bitch to dps when luck wasn't on my side. Now, should blizzard make bosses only the front/back type just to keep dagger rogues happy? Nerfing the possibilites in raid content design (no wall bosses as in FF)? That's where your idea comes in, Blizzard should do bosses with no positionning requirements for dagger rogues, only when those bosses don't allow backside attacks. Now on a more constrasted note. Hope this new Assassination build's gonna be real rewarding, cause with a build 2x more difficult to master than a straight combat one, positionning requirements and this new enrage skill on a 10s timer. It's gonna take a lot of concentration to get the whole juice out of this build. On a side note, please excuse my poor english skills, really enjoying your blog, please post more 3|_173 content! |
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Quote:
I really think that dagger positionning requirements add more skill to the rogue pve gameplay. It also enables players to know that they are really behind the target (really useful on chtun-like mobs), allowing them to maximize their white dps. So I don't really agree with your idea of removing those requirements.
Either way, I reject that argument entirely. There is no functional difference between "the game won't let me attack unless I'm behind" and "I can attack if I'm not behind, but doing so would cause great danger to my tank and harm my DPS, so I really shouldn't." |
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Rogue (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8885))
A lot of changes are coming for rogues, check this post for more details. Assassination Skills * Mutilate no longer requires you to be behind the target. Guess you won! GG |
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Yeah, I'm pretty much ecstatic about that. Plus they changed Cut to the Chase not to require critical strikes. Clearly I'm either making convincing arguments, or just thinking along the same lines as Blizzard's designers.
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Damn this new beta build is as promising as it is lame.
Overkill doesn't feel in place in this tree, and what's up with relentless strike being moved, and changed into a sucky 5 pts talents. I can't help but feel frustrated when I'm building a template. Why not swap Relentless with Overkill if they find it so OP. And replace Vigor with one of the poison talents wich are way too numerous in the last tiers of the assa tree. What's your POV? |
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Hey all,
I really appreciate the comments. I've learned a lot about my gnome rogue just reading the various blogs. I have a couple questions. I don't have LK yet, but am planning to buy it soon. My toon is currently lvl 65 gnome ATM speced combat swords. Here's my biggest question not knowing enough about high order rogue IQ. What specs do you guys think is best for LK. I imagine a lot of this depends on play style. But I need some help learning about the differences between mutialate/combat specs etc... I downloaded Vulajin's rogue craft spread sheet, haven't looked at it much, but will... Any help would be awesome. Rogue in training... |
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Recent Blog Entries by Vulajin
- Cut to the Chase (08/06/08)
- Alpha, Beta, and Roguecraft (07/30/08)
