Bear in mind that if rogues are using energy and talent points on stuff that increases their survivablity, their DPS is going to be lower as well, hence so will their threat generation. Combine that with passive threat reductions, and the agro threshold for a rogue tank would be very low. In addition, a tank without any sort of snap agro is dangerous to the raid.

Why stop at rogues? Clearly we need mage and priest tanking utility! I demand it...

If you're trying to contribute or be funny, you're failing. If you're trying to troll and get banned, you're succeeding.

Priests already have multiple roles - they can heal very well, and DPS somewhat. Mages are pretty much restricted to DPS, I admit, but they have some curing functionality (decurse) and kiting functionality (which is in a certain way tanking) and are much more flexible in what kinds of DPS they're good for than rogues (single target or AoE). If you can think of a good way to give mages some additional utility in a specific arena without either overwhelming primary class responsibility for that area or overpowering mages, I will support it 100%.

Look at it this way: do you *like* being pigeonholed into buffing and cleansing? Or are you happy you're getting the ability to probably tank effectively, maybe even do more DPS?

Yeah, of course you do. Now turn it around. It is just barely possible that rogues may be sick of being pigeonholed into single-target DPS roles, and this is an *easy* addition to rogue utility allowing us to do something else. It won't take away tanking from the mitigation tanks (warriors, druids, paladins), it won't overpower rogues, but it would provide more fun, more flexibility to the game.

Seriously, if you have nothing constructive to add, shut up and heal me.

Rogues are not a hybrid class. We do damage, that is it.

If you expect to be given any sort of tanking ability, expect our damage to be nerfed. The ability to do both combined is just too much. Are you trying to hit at the "Warriors can DPS and tank, so why can't rogues?"

Even with 3/5 DD your evasion is 2.5 minutes, still too long to be reliable at all. As you also noted, leather (any decent leather) has no +defense on it either, so you're going to get one shot instantly, not to mention any abilities (shadowflames, web wraps, etc.) that certain monsters have.

Are you thinking of 40man/25man instances?, or small, 5man stuff?

I could see a rogue tanking scholo or something like that, but nothing practical at all.


EDIT: The way I see this issue is this, you either dodge everything and take the very rare hit, or you die. Think using evasion on a warrior, there is no point in having a "high dodge, 40%-50%" as you say, if you're just going to die when that hit lands.

You either dodge all of it, or you die. Since you reliably cant even dodge all of it, you die.

Considering that this post went over like a lead balloon WoW Rogue forums (not that is a shock when they are still arguing about Surprise Attacks), I'm not sure its likely to change anyway. My influence with Blizzard + $4.50 gets you a coffee of Latte at Starbucks.

But at least its fun to talk about!

I know some very good Fury warriors who can do both fairly well. I'm pretty sure that is one of the reasons why the warrior class is a popular and fun class to play. There are always trade offs.

The single hit death phenomon is something I talked about in my post actually. Nobody is going to volunteer up a rogue tank as the ideal class to tank a fight like patchwerk or broodlord. But there are a multitude of other very viable scenarios, especially, as I said, if you itemize for the role properly.

Warriors have DPS and tanking gear, why would rogue be any different under this scenario?

You didn't actually read the thread, did you. We are a damage class, yes. But right now, paladins and shamans ARE healing classes. It's an expansion. Things often change significantly in expansions.

Mitigation tanking is strong in some kinds of encounters. Avoidance tanking (what a hypothetical rogue tank would do) is good in others.

With the right spec, with *existing* itemization, a rogue can reduce NPC crit chance to 0.48%. With minor additional itemization support, it would be easy to see rogues hitting 0% crit chance (remember that Sleight of Hand is, for purposes of crit reduction, equivalent to 50 points of +defense).

Think about Fankriss for a second. He doesn't hit very hard at all. However, his ability to apply a stacking -heal debuff means you have to swap off tanks regularly. Now, a rogue who gets hit with only 1/4 of the debuffs a warrior might, EVEN WITHOUT EVER USING EVASION, is a ton easier to heal, especially since his total damage taken isn't much higher (75% full mitigation, 35% reduction vs. 75% reduction, 35% full mitigation). Even though damage input may be equal, the fact that the debuff will stack never, or much lower.

Picture an untauntable Fankriss encounter who doesn't actually hit hard enough to one-shot a rogue, but still has the -healing debuff. A warrior will eventually die, simply because they can't avoid the debuff frequently enough. A rogue could tank the whole thing, since the debuff will fall off regularly as they chain dodge/parries (or use Evasion in an emergency to guarantee a debuff stack falloff).

Picture a chessboard encounter. First hit in a row deals 1000. Second 2000. Third 4000. Fourth 8000. Fifth 16000. See why an avoidance tank, especially one with multiple controlled ways to boost avoidance (Evasion, Ghostly Strike) is superior?

Picture an untranqable Flamegor with the majority of the damage in the AoE pulses rather than melee. A rogue, properly specced, acts as a far superior tank (15% direct mitigation of the AoE, 4% boosted resistance to it, 2 minute timer for 90% resistance skill) to a prot warrior (16% spell damage reduction in def stance with TBC talents, I believe?)

And yes: Warriors *can* DPS and tank. So can druids.

So why can't rogues DPS as well as warriors tank, and tank as well as druids can DPS?

To be fair, warriors have some mitigation skills available druids don't - specifically, the ability to bring crit and crush to very low levels via defense itemization and shield block. This makes, to a certain extent, warrior incoming damage more consistent than druid incoming damage.

Interestingly enough, making some gear available to rogues allowing them to tank effectively (specifically, epic leather +defense pieces) would likely improve druid tanking itemization as well.

Especially so with the addition of Sockets. You could start with a leather item with base tanking stats, like stamina, dodge and defense, but no strength or agility. Start with an item like:

Dreadnaught Breastplate
1027 Armor (Plate)
+21 Strength
+43 Stamina
Equip: Increased Defense +13.
Equip: Increases your chance to dodge an attack by 1%.
Equip: Improves your chance to hit by 2%.

A leather chest might have 425 or so armor (Ghoul Skin has 411 @ ilevel 83). Now drop all the Strength off, and add a few sockets. Druid tanks could add +str gems, rogue tanks could add +agi gems. Leaving you with:

Demon Skin Tunic
425 Armor (Leather)
+43 Stamina
Equip: Increased Defense +13.
Equip: Increases your chance to dodge an attack by 1%.
Equip: Improves your chance to hit by 2%.
2 Sockets (or whatever +21 Str is worth)

Both rogue tanks and feral druids would be able to use this item, so one less thing to get sharded.

What minor additonal itemization do you mean? Core armor kits? Also, Sleight of Hand is not equivalent to 50 defense, you're missing the mitigation attached to Defense.

You would do this with warriors the same way Huhuran, or Gluth is done.
Having that ".48% crit" PER HIT, over a 5-10 minute fight is a chance at an instant wipe if it happens once. As low ass the odds are, taking a gamble isnt a thing i'd like to subject a raid to.


I understand why you feel pigeonholed into just doing DPS, but you're just building yourself ideal encounters for a rogue. None of these things will come to fruitation simply because a rogue cannot take a hit, let alone build aggro (they created a poison to REDUCE aggro, not add).

There are also items that would be useable such as the Scarab Broach from Kri, or Loathebs Reflection to make up for resistance fights like this.

As far as any "second role" things coming to rogues from BC, im expecting something more along the line of suppression trap disarming.

Off Tanking would be fun. More gimmick "Hey, we need a rogue along" encounters, not fun.

As for 'minor itemization', see the proposed armor I theorycrafted above. Right now non-set leather is either build for druid feral (lots of str, armor and some stamina) or rogue DPS. We would just need some combined druid/rogue tanking pieces with Stamina, Defense and sockets for customization. Not hard to do, and it benefits druids as much as rogues.

"For purpose of crit reduction". Please read the whole sentence.

Minor additional itemization is basically just more leather gear with defense, and a bit more with the agi/sta/dodge trio without the heavily boosted armor druids like.

You can. But it'd be a hell of a lot easier with an avoidance tank, where bungled tank swaps don't destroy you, because you don't need to tank swap at all.

BTW, I'm 12 defense shy in that profile of being uncrittable. Minor. Additional. Itemization.

YOU DIDN'T READ THE THREAD, DID YOU. Seriously. Go back. Read it, before you try to argue any more. I understand you don't like the idea, but I'm getting very tired of throwing arguments in the face of people who could have read the thread and understood why their arguments are already accounted for.

In the original post, two additional poisons were posited - a +threat poison and a taunt poison. Combined with Shiv for guaranteed application, building aggro is even less of a problem (considering that if I want aggro right now, I can have it, it's funny to see people claim rogues can't build aggro).

I'm giving whole categories of encounters where an avoidance tank is superior to a mitigation tank, the same as druids can come up with encounters where mitigation tanking is vastly superior. You're saying "But those encounters don't exist!". But they could. Right now, paladins can't tank. In TBC, in theory they will. *Right now*, rogues can't tank. In TBC, why not?

Options. Options are good.

Bite your tongue and hope you choke. Suppression trap disarming isn't a secondary role, any more than handing out water is. If you don't think it'll happen, that's one thing - I don't think it will happen either. But the thread isn't about whether it will happen. It's about what changes would be needed (a couple), how large those changes are (very small), and the potential value to the game if they're made (reasonably large), as well as the value of adding a role to a class that feels quite pigeonholed at the moment (giant).

This implies to me you are envisioning rogues as main tanking, or at least being the most important tank in a fight. I agree that that would certainly require added threat generation and/or taunting abilities, but my argument is that as it stands currently, rogues are fine for tanking mobs which the raid isn't focusing their fire on, like the bloodlord's raptor if you are trying to avoid the enrage. Obviously Zul'Gurub isn't cutting edge raid content and even if it were, using a rogue to tank wouldn't be efficient use of raid resources give the encounter design. However, that doesn't mean that rogues need +threat and taunt to tank, just that they would need them to hold agro over other DPS.

Touche.

No, I'm envisioning a real secondary tanking role for rogues, much like druids and paladins are receiving. Which, yes, would involve at least the capability of +threat and taunt. Which, yes, would involve the potential for a rogue to be main tank *in some fights*. Obviously not all - an avoidance tank is unsuitable for a fight like Patchwerk. However, a fight like Fankriss, a rogue would potentially be an excellent main tank - if it weren't for the threat generation issues.

In the end, we're already looking at having 2 healing/tanking hybrids (druids and paladins) - where's the major concern for people in having two DPS/tanking hybrids (warriors and rogues).

I've read the post Kalman, and rather then argue with you, i'll allow you to keep your Utopian fantasy.

I have no interest in arguing about whether or not it will happen. I have minor interest in arguing about whether or not it should happen. I have lots of interest in arguing about how it could happen.

Confine your arguments to the latter pair, and I'll confine my insults. Until then, read the goddamn thread and address real issues, not "I don't think it's going to happen".

Strength's a pretty mediocre tanking stat for both rogues and druids though, correct? Agi/sta is the key to both rogue and druid tanking, with a minor nod to defense (rogues) and AC (druids). Items with an agi/sta/dodge split and sockets are probably most flexible for the two classes; rogues would fill the sockets with defense, most likely, maybe dodge/parry/agi, while druids would be more inclined towards AC/dodge/str?

Ever since hate mechanics stopped using a special coefficient for threat from crits, strength has been better for bear tanks due to predictability and maul multipliers. I'll dredge up the math from somewhere on my HD if forced but it's pretty logical given that point for point from an ilvl budget standpoint you get more dps from strength as well.

No math needed, I believe you.

I'd still be inclined to say keep it off the base items, since it's an *incredibly* weak stat for rogue tanking. Make it the counterpart to +defense in socketing for druids; the base shared stats remain agi/sta/dodge and some AC, as both benefit strongly from those stats. Let the sockets address defense, strength, parry, etc.

I have actually been waiting for this theorycraft to start somewhere, the WoW Forums were obviously a dead end.

For rogues to be effective tanks, they do not need any Def. The primary goal should be getting Dodge% + Parry% + Miss% = 100%. Much in the same way druid tanks rely on having massive Armor and HP to tank a rogue tank would have to focus on never being hit. Stam, Agi, parry, dodge and hit% would be a tanking rogues primary stats. I believe the dodge to agi ratio is 1:13 correct? Maxing that with as much agi as possible will go a long way towards the goal. Once a rogue can reach 100% dodge/parry/miss buffed, they're better tanks on non-magical bosses then everyone.

Going back a little, to FFXI specifically, Warriors and Paladins were the main tanks for a long time. Paladins were actually better because self healing generated more aggro then doing damage, the formula was amount healed + health gained, a White mage gained aggro by healing the tank and the tank gained aggro by being healed. Then Ninja's came along. The FFXI ninja was much like the WoW Rogue, they hit hard, but were fragile. They had/have this skill Utsemi:Ni. Utsemi gave the next 3 attacks against them 100% miss rate. They were never ment to be tanks, they did not have a provoke/taunt skill, however with the subjob system in FFXI Ninja/Warrior(Who had a provoke skill) became the ultimate tank, Provoke first, cast Uts:ni hit hit hit, Cast Uts. They were the most mana effiecent tanks for healers because they just never got hit. The second part of this is the fact that threat in FFXI was lessened every time you got hit by the amount of damage done to you, so again you can see how never being hit helped the Ninja's keep aggro, and they had a provoke to pull aggro back to them from their warrior subjob.

Once a rogue can reach the point of almost never being hit, they become more mana effiecent for healers, further dropping the number of healers necessary to survive an encounter, and at the same time, increasing the dps of the entire raid. it's really the next logical progression of WoW raiding.

The only problem still is the lack of a provoke/taunt. However, a rogue focusing souly on AGI/Dodge/Parry will have a huge crit%, and rather high AP, letting them do plenty of damage. A rogue who never feints or vanishes has an easy time pulling aggro off a warrior, honestly.

Anyway, Kalman/Avair, try redoing your calculations. Forget about Def and focus only on Dodge/Parry. See how high you can get it.

I don't know how much math has really gone into this, mainly because its just theoritcal without the itemization (high stamina, defense leather). And if we were max survivalibity mode, we need +threat, we just won't do enough damage.

The main trouble with ignoring defense in favor of avoidance is that you end up replace hits with criticals. At 90% avoidance, with no defense (or -crit), you would push all hit results off the combat table. So all damage you take is either a crit or crush. That would be really really dangerous.

Rogue tanks would have enough worries about the crushing blows, they really need to reduce the spike damage to increase their survivability.

We can't get to 100% consistent mitigation, last I checked. We can get close, and can hit 100% for 7s out of every 20, but we can't get to 100% mitigation unbuffed.

And that's good, because *if we could*, we'd be the best possible Patchwerk HS tank, the best possible Fankriss tank, etc, etc. I don't think that's a good idea. I think having us be solid offtanks and optimal tanks for situations with stacking physical damage is enough - there's enough issue for warriors with druids being in a certain sense better for encounters with purely physical damage.

(Though, thinking about that... with optimal gearset, a rogue could be the HS tank 1/3 of the time, as long as the healers were careful to rotate the other two up above him for the 13s GS is down, and let them stay low while GS is up. If coordination were perfect, it might allow for an easier heal burden, but coordination isn't perfect, so that tactic remains in the realm of idle theorycraft.)