Astmathic

Hi all,

Ive been a steady reader of theese forums for about 2 years now and I still love 'em. The question I have might be a bit better suited for the official WoW forums but I know I will get a much better and more constructive answer here than I would ever get on the official forums. I have tried to search for this but can't seem to find anything on the matter, or I just might suck on searching. If this matter has already been discussed I would gladly get directed to those topics by those who know better than me and this could be heaped.

Me and my friend since a long time have just started a casual guild. Both of us has been in the hardcore pve earlier, but left or just pulled down on playing time a lot when tbc hit. We thought that since we have kinda nice experience of the game and just love the raiding part of it(we dont really care about the loot, its just everything else, teamwork, artwork, encounters, epic feeling you name it!) we could manage our own small guild with a start focus on 10 mans and maybe later 25 mans and whatever it would come in WotLK.

Now we are starting to recruit more actively since we are getting close to 70 (both rerolled) and the thought crossed my mind when we discussed groupsetups. Why do we need rogues?

They sure have a nice dps, but they are not in the top anymore, a good dpswarrior can be as good as a rogue and bring raidviability such as trashtanking, shouts etc. I have really tried, but except for decent damage I just cant find anything that makes a rogue viable in raids.

So I thought, is it just because of my lack of knowledge of the rogueclass or is it really so that rogues today are about as usefull to a raid as a hunter was in naxx?

I dont hate rogue's but I don't see the reason to bring any to the raids, except maybe as dpsfillers if its needed when there are a small lack of people available for a raid.

So what say ye all, am I completely off the chart here? Why should you bring a rogue to a raid?

 

• Vandemar

Rogues, when properly supported with group composition, do noticeably more damage than any other class. Fitting more than 3 into a raid can be tough unless you run a 2nd melee group, but 2-3 rogues is a valuable part of a 25-man group, and 1-2 are very strong in a 10-man.

 

Aoife

Rogue dps is fine as far as I know. I see no reason why you wouldn't bring one to Karazhan or ZA.

Class composition doesn't really matter for 10-mans really anyway as long as you have one tank, a couple healers and decent DPS.

 

Fqubed

I find this post is quite intresting as in the new server I have rerolled I am in the process of starting a small raid party. While I do not share your thoughts that rogues have no spot in a 10 man perhaps suggesting group makeup will have a better effect than saying rogues are good, or are not good. To that end this is what I'm currentlly in the process of recruiting.

G1
-pally tank (me)
-Holy priest
-shadow priest
-mage
-lock
G2
-rogue
-enh shaman
-dps war/offtank
-pally heals
-hunter /filler/

The party is more or less set by a few that I know in person and am trying to introduce to raiding, then trying to fit in around them the rest of the classes to make for a decent raid group, but I feel it can work well.

 

Hamstring

I fully support this. I regularly raid on my rogue and while a fury warrior will come close to us on damage he has never done more damage than me. However, that being said, in our 25 man raids usually (depending on the encounter) our top 5 dpsers are usually two rogues, an enhancement shaman and a fury warrior and a warlock (or a third rogue instead of the shaman depending upon group coposition(either way, our melee group is usually first on damage on "tank and spank" style bosses)).

While rogues may not seem to be as useful as other classes our damage output is noticably higher to compensate for this. I think totally excluding rogues from your raids will be a costly mistake in the long run. I think you should find a nice ballance, at the moment my guild uses 4 active rogues for 25 mans and rotates them with 3 rogues being taken at a maximum and usually a minimum of 2 (with the exception of naj'entus we try not to take many but we have taken 3 before and it wasnt as much of a problem as we thought it may have been).

The key to getting the most out of your rogues is getting an enhancement shaman and a fury warrior. For 25 man raids this is where they will shine, in a group with those 2 classes. However in 10 man unsupported a rogue will still hold his own even if he offers very little to no utility.

 

Duilliath

For Karazhan ... whatever you bring doesn't matter all that much, honestly.

As long as people don't suck and the tanks and healers aren't all that bad, you'll get through regardless.

There's no specific need to *bring* a rogue or, for that matter, to *leave out* a rogue.

They are certainly useful on an encounter like Shade of Aran, but so are Warlocks. And we've killed Aran plenty of times without either.

Personally, I prefer bringing one of each class for the abilities they bring and not having to shard loot along the way.

 

Astmathic

Thx for some really nice replies, thought it would be superior dps. It was just that in all the WWS reports Ive checked the top dpsers seems to be BM Hunter, Warlock, Shadowpriest, Rogue/Fury Warrior/Mage.

The group composition Ive thought of would be something like:

Tank group
Prot Warrior
Healing Paladin
Feral Druid
Tree Druid/holy priest
BM Hunter


DPS group
Shadowpriest
Warlock
Mage
Elemental Shaman
Resto Shaman

However if it is so that rogues has such superior dps I could think of switching the BM Hunter for a rogue.

 

Enova

Remember that even in 10 mans, there are encounters that more or less require or become easier with proper class balance. I could point, for instance at Aran, that requires 4 regular interrupters and rogues will be great for that and insane dps on the paper armor old ghost, or Zul'jin, where phase 3 (I don't really remember if it's 3 or 4) is considerably harder without 2 melee dps, where spells do damage to their casters, or even Malacrass, where casting pushback is a pain.

But basically, rogues will be insane dps on every fight that doesn't involve AOE. The problem is they're rather squishy and placed close to the mean AOEing bosses. Usually, chain heals and proper group male ups greatly increase rogues effectiveness, to a level worth having.

Of course, this is what happens with a decent rogue with a PVE spec

 

Hamstring

Well we've only just started bt/mh so im sure it will change as to who's biting the rogue's heels for the spots below ours, but i'm confident that rogues will still be top in bt/mh (i'm sure i could check WWS logs to find out if i'm right, but i'd rather find out from personal experience). However through out SSC/TK it's been what i stated previously.

Sure in 10 mans it doesn't matter if you take one or not, but in 25 mans i would definatly have a rogue or two. Besides after you put your enh shaman with your fury warrior and your feral druid, who else are you going to put in that group? a tank? you may as well take 2 rogues. Besides, kicks are lovely things on some fights.

 

Hamstring

Oh yes i totally forgot this, you need a proper spec to do wortwhile dps. General rule of thumb, if they dont have dual wield spec odds are they wont be doing the dps they should be doing.

 

Linnet

I'm guessing you haven't fought Aran recently You don't need 4 interrupts. And fury warriors will be great dps on every fight including ones that involve AE.

Basically, it's useful to have one or two melee along for the 10 mans who can also interrupt. Up to you if you want to bring dps warriors or rogues, they're both good in that role. Sure, a dps warrior can also OT but that doesn't mean rogues aren't good if you already have an OT sorted out. It's not really something to sweat blood over. It will be easier to gear up a rogue than a fury warrior but I guess that's the player's issue not yours

 

Dky

I think that rogues are the class that is perfect for players that have just started raiding. In one way it requires a certain ammount of focus - AoE bosses, cleaves, but once you master this, rogues are more forgiving, then other classes. With the proper spec, poisoning your weapons right and having a general understanding of the damage cycle it is really easy to do good damage. Even if things go wrong (you overaggro, get into some magical AoE), one can use either Vanish or Cloak Of Shadows. This is really "newbie friendly". Mastering a hunter and warrior, in my opinion, is far more complicated - the shooting cycle, pet micro, threat (the problem of some dps warriors), positioning in bigger packs (whirlwind).
It's plain easier for a newly raiding player to be succesful with a rogue.

 

mek

Rogues and warlocks are kings of DPS and the difference when you lack one is immediately noticeable. ZA, especially the timed event, obviously rewards DPS, and rogues make a large difference. And yes, unlike many other DPS classes rogues have a wide variety of escapes available to them which means you generally worry much less about them getting gibbed or stealing aggro. A typical group setup would be:

Warrior (MT)
Druid (OT)
Shaman (enhance)
Rogue
Pally or DPS Warrior

In a group like that, any decent rogue will slaughter DMs.

 

khel

In almost all situations with my raids, we find that the 3 classes that consistently do great dps are rogues, warlocks, and hunters. Different fights cater more towards different classes, but in a 25man raid we rely on these 3 groups the most for our main dps.

In 10 mans, utility often becomes more important than raw dps, so I personally wouldn't bring more than 1 rogue ideally. Rogues basically contribute dps, and an interrupt.

The 10man setup that I prefer is:

Prot Warrior
Prot Paladin
Resto Druid
Holy Paladin
Rogue

Resto Shaman
Shadow Priest
Warlock
Mage
BM Hunter

though there are plenty of other good combinations. 3 healers, 1 main tank, 1 offtank, and 5 dps is a good rule of thumb and imo it's best to have diverse and synergistic dps sources, as at different points the preferred dps source will shift between aoe, magical, physical, ranged, and/or melee. A rogue almost always fits in, though it wouldn't be difficult to replace him with an enhancement shaman or a dps warrior I suppose. I prefer rogues for raw dps over dps warriors because they aren't so dependant on windfury, and they generally provide more dps with less risk and cost than enhancement shamans or dps warriors.


edit: About hunters vs rogues in MH/BT well, for raw dps comparisons I would say both classes are pretty similar. Our hunters generally perform better on fights like Teron Gorefiend that are straight tank, spank, and burn, though rogues definitely have huge advantages on fights like Archimonde where ranged dpsers are just staying alive. I bring a total of 5 rogues/hunters in my raids, though I personally prefer 3 hunters and 2 rogues over 3 rogues and 2 hunters.

 

Giske

You're going to have to look at their spec, gear, gemming choices etc to find out if they are any good. Theres a lot of terribad rogues out there with horrible specs and gear for PvE or just clueless about how to be efficient in raids. Also, rogue DPS is much more gear dependant than casters and theres some pretty poor weapon choices in early raiding like Karazhan (theres some good ones in ZA though). No other class scales as well as rogues though, so you'll see their DPS increasing at a more rapid pace than other classes as you gear them up.

That being said, rogues DO only bring DPS and the occasional interrupt to raids and theres not a lot of reason to bring more than 3 to a 25 man ever. Hopefully Blizzard will address this situation in WotLK and give rogues something more to contribute with in raids, but until then you'd be best served by locating skilled rogues who can DPS properly as they can and will (depending on the fight of course) blow anyone else out of the water DPS wise.

 

Ozzmar

The dealbreaker (for me, at least) would be the fact that a Fury Warrior's only threat control is a poorly-placed Soulstone. Rogues inherently do less threat than other classes (80% if I remember right), and have two separate abilities to control threat if it does manage to get too high.

Their high damage potential coupled with good threat control makes rogues a no-brainer.

 

Duilliath

Even so - 3 spots out of 25... That's already more than some classes are getting and hardly something to complain about.

But this was about Karazhan. As stated several times above, it doesn't make a lick of difference. As long as you bring 2 people that can tank (1 dedicated MT, 1 OT) and 2 dedicated healers, the rest will only help to make life easier on the odd encounter. The only class I'd love to always have along would be at least one priest. But there have been plenty of times we didn't have a priest and just took a Paladin, Druid and/or Shaman healer.

Theorycrafting about Karazhan is nice and all, but with the group you listed

You have a ton of overlap in shared drops. A number of weapons will be sharded. Tier tokens will be wasted or on overlap.

But... as stated before - it'll get you through Karazhan. Just like pretty much else. There is honestly no need to take it this serious - it's barely more than a Heroic you get to bring twice as many people for. And I seriously doubt you go min/max this much for those as well.

On top of that, if you ever hope to move on to 25man runs, I hope you have all classes handy, because there are fights where certain classes are pretty much a must-have.

 

Lumi

Fury Warriors are, baring a streak of crits/windfuries, no longer threat capped against a good tank with Salv. This is especially the case if they are on sunder/tc/demo duty as well.

Rogues are not as strong in 10 mans as they are in 25 mans since in the larger raids, the raid is catered towards them. In order for rogues to shine, you need sunder, ff, cor, bs, wf, soe, unleashed rage, bloodlust, etc. The same rogues that beat me by miles in large raid setting are on par with me in a 10 man. Kicks and stuns are strong utility though.

 

rayijin

It's a lot harder for a rogue to shine in a 10-man raid compared to a 25-man.

The difference in dps between an unbuffed rogue on a non-debuffed mob and a buffed rogue on a debuffed mob is roughly double, something like an 80-100% increase according to what posters say in rogue theorycraft threads.

The only thing that another class brings that affects a warlock is misery and shadow weaving, which is a 10% + 5% increase.

For this reason, in kara, rogues rarely have a chance to top dps meters. At best they can tie with other dps classes, without bringing much of anything else to the raid.

Things that are needed to maximize a rogue's dps:

x5 sunders on a mob (prot warrior preferrably)
x2 faerie fire / lotp (feral druid)
x1 expose weakness (survival hunter)
x1 curse of recklessness (2nd or 3rd warlock in the raid)
x1 blood frenzy (arms warrior)
x3 shaman buffs - wf, soe, ur (enhancement shaman)
x2-3 pally buffs - might, kings (salv is somewhat debatable)

That's a 10-man raid right there, and such a raid would not include a priest or mage.

In a "balanced" group containing one of each class, this list of buffs is not possible. You get maybe half on average.

Most of the posters in this thread are at the point where kara is so easy that any comp they have will be good enough to down it, mine included. However, casters are better than rogues in 10-mans. They're easier to stack and get all needed buffs for (all you need is a pally for salv and a shadowpriest for misery/shadow weaving, a shaman barely affects caster dps vs a rogue), they're generally safer dps due to having range.

I agree with this statement. [sarcasm] Either that or all the rogues I've ever seen on raids don't try on 10-mans but suddenly become amazing players in 25-mans! [/sarcasm]

 

Moogul

Why double up on shamans in group 2? That seems rather stupid, the only air totem (the most powerful element) that group 2 benefits from really is Wrath of Air, assuming he drops that the Resto Shaman has a wasted air totem (unless you have a really bad tank who needs the ranged to have tranquil air). An Elemental shaman can easily keep up WoA, ToW and Mana spring, which means the only thing the resto shaman adds is the occasional mana tide and bloodlust (and you can group switch for that anyway).

Why not switch the resto shaman with the holy paladin, you still have the same number of healers getting the shadowpriest, the casters can get conc aura if needed, and the tank group loses Devotion Aura but gains a boat load of totems (in this case probably GoA rather then WF, unless aggro is tight, plus SoE and Mana Spring).

 

Giske

A good rogue will top meters in Karazhan and Zul'aman, but looking at how many melee unfriendly fights that place contains I can certainly appreciate peoples reservations. Especially if they dont have a good rogue at hand.

Theres absolutely no reason a rogue cant shine in 10 mans though and you shouldnt dismiss rogues completely.

 

mmartinx

I generally only do 10 mans with a group of close friends, so we don't have access to a lot of classes/builds (hunter, mage, prot paladin)

A setup that worked great in Kara, works great in ZA is:

Prot warrior
Feral druid
rogue
enh shaman
affliction lock

Holy priest
shadow priest
holy paladin
holy paladin
boomkin

Between the fully buffed rogue/shaman combo and shadow priest/lock combo it's insane damage from 4 sources. The boomkin doesn't provide huge damage, but all classes benefit from crit in that group.

But yeah, that group is a dream to 10 man in as a rogue

battle shout (sometimes imp BS if the warrior goes 31 fury 30 prot, with [Solarian's Sapphire])
improved leader of the pack
unleashed rage
windfury (sometimes will twist GoA)
strength of earth
sunder
mangle
imp FF
CoR
salv (even have them switch to kings after i vanish)
might