Unless you're 51 sub, in which case you'd want LOTS of spirit.

Two things I just realized:
1) I may be dating myself
2) That's probably not going to be a shitty build in xpac :(

Along the lines of #2 there, I think that the +skill nerf is exactly what the devs were intending. I think the nerf to weapon skill was intended to be the great equalizer for roguekind when it comes to instance/raid damage builds. Without expertise and skill itemization SF and Subt got a huge indirect buff.

Correct.

The only way hemo is really viable now is if you are human so get the weapon skill bonus.

On thinking about it more carefully hemo may get less nerfed than combat just because less of its damage is white. It might even improve relative to CD since CD will go from 310 skill to 300 (basically, I consider the new skill mechanic just this side of worthless) while human hemo goes from 305 to 300. The down side to that is that I don't consider a non-human combat/hemo rogue to currently be worth the raid space. After the nerf we are all in that boat, even daggers.

You can talk all you like about rogues still getting raid spots just cause there is nobody else to fill them. But "I need a rogue to sit for a healer/tank/hunter/mage" is already a fact of life 2-4 times a day on our raids. We used to run with 5-7 rogues every raid now we might have 5... maybe... If the fury warriors and mages stay home.

Right now out of the 8 rogues in CQ I think 2 are planning to play a rogue after TBC. Thats just not right, the class is fun but right now its just too weak.

Wish they'd tune a raid mechanic for rogues to be able to stealth numerous times in say a 5 minute 25 man raid encounter, sans Vanish (but not in world PvP). Like, if it's a multi mob encounter with a big boss included, as long as rogues didn't engage the main mob they could restealth as they took care of adds. Then you could have Sub and Assass. rogues for those jobs and combat rogues for dps roles. I'd feel better about wanting to spec Sub in TBC, and actually following through with it and not always being worried about how much dps I'm not putting out. The silliest thing about all these Sub buffs is the tree is considered the PvP tree not because of the cooldown talents, but because it just allows you to restealth so much more often via those cooldowns. What about an ability that doesn't clear aggro, but it does take you out of combat? Useless in PvP, useful in PvE - like Hunter misdirection functions.

We're still like the only class limping along in game design terms because the devs keep tuning our class around the stealth mechanic, even though the rest of the game is tuned around us not being in stealth.

About half of ours are sticking it out, but most of us are looking at alts very closely, especially because 60-70 is the perfect time to close the gear gap between a raiding main and a decently-geared ez-raid/20-man alt.

Weird. I had pretty much exactly the opposite feelings after trying it out last night. Was definitely better for basic grinding (i was testing in hearthglen) than 31/8/12 for me. Might just be a gear thing - with the itemisation changes on the PTR (if you haven't already, pull your BoN ring from the bank, it's crazily good now), i was sitting at just about 1k AP and about 27% or so crit, while maintaining +14 hit. Didn't try it out in pvp, but then i never really got properly used to seal fate daggers in pvp anyway, so i wouldn't really be able to compare fairly...

I never had a problem keeping poisons up (except when i forgot to reapply them...), although to be fair i had 5/5 imp poisons and 3 BF. I was testing with Perds/CHT too, and wasn't disappointed at all by the damage (and i'm definitely very tempted by the thought of grinding up a couple of HWL daggers after the patch goes live). It's certainly not some mind-blowing incredible change from backstab, and definitely doesn't shine if you do it without poisons, but it's easily comparable to backstab with poisons, and with find weakness/imp kidney up it's just insane. And needless to say, the combo point generation is great.

Yeah, thats our thinking. We can start out at damn near even footing to the older members of the same class, so we don't lose too much rerolling now. On the other hand, once we hit 70 and start raiding there is a big penalty for switching again so there is even more incentive to bail now if rogues look weak.

All of us have level 60 alts, most of us have 2-4. The two that are thinking of sticking with the class are rogues whose alts would be rejected for raiding, ie. an 11th warrior.

I'm eyeing enhance shaman myself. The down side of that is if they completely nerf melee the enhance shaman has to take on a resto role on a raid.

I think they should just make Stealth usable in combat, with the following restrictions:
Any opponent with who has seen you and with whom you are in combat will automatically see you, unless you clear combat first, or use Vanish.
Any opponent who has you targeted will keep you targeted, and any spells in progress will continue, unless you use Vanish.
To make it balanced, they would probably have to increase the cooldown on Stealth to 15 or 20 seconds. I'm not sure how much it would do to pvp because once people know you're there they can do things to counter re-stealthing, but in pve it will open up new options, like Sap as a viable form of CC, to name one.

Well here is my question for you Griz and Wodin. How many people outside of Rogues in your current guild are looking to switch classes? Doesn't Blizzard Realize there is a problem when a lot of accomplished rogues are willing to give up the two years of time the put into there class to play a new one? Not because they are bored with the class, but because the class is being made weaker and weaker by Blizzard for no apparent reason at all?

Other than the rogues we have one druid switching to paladin.

We may have one or more warriors switch if they want a raid spot. We had 10 warriors with 100% attendance until fairly recently and even now I think we are at 9. There is no way we will keep that many warriors.

Edit: If I can't get a strait answer to the question "What is a rogues role in a raid at 70" before TBC comes out there is not a chance I'm sticking with rogue. Way too risky.

I know you're question isn't directed at me(or even my class), but I thought I would answer anyway. The past 2 years of work almost means nothing after the expansion. TBC is the great equalizer in terms of gear. Here are I think some main points most people consider when rerolling:

1. Tired of playing current class. Warriors can be really fun, especially when you get a crit string and fill up your rage bar. But doing BT, WW, and hamstring over and over for the last year can be boring, maybe time to try something new.

2. Devs seem unresponsive or untrustworthy. Blizzard has designed 4 raid dungeons, and the best they can do for rogues is provide stunnable mobs in a raid setting? That's not even something unique they provide, a host of paladins are arguably better if you want to stun something on demand. For warriors, a sizable nerf in rage generation can be enough to doubt the devs. Regardless of whether warriors are overpowered, it's a big change that really came out of nowhere, and the devs still don't give a clear defenition where they'd like warrior dps in reference to other classes. That's why I'm thinking of rerolling. Even if warrior dps ends up being fine, I don't like the idea of investing even MORE time into a class that might be "adjusted" later when the devs find out that the rage nerf wasn't enough. Or, when I get to 70 and find out the devs were spot on and I deal less dps than the "main" dps classes. If that's the case, I want to switch classes while I can.

3. Lastly, a lot of guilds are full on wariors. Nobody likes the waiting list. So, since gear isn't a problem to switching, a lot of people are considering switching to a class the guild needs more so they can help out and don't have to sit as much.

I really think the people are overreacting on everything. Once everything is said and done, the rogue class should be a very solid pve class. Fury warriors are going to be very powerful as well, with most likely enough rage to keep BT/WW/OP/Rampage on cooldown, it will be some nasty damage. However, using Heroic strike to get rid of glancing blows and add some damage seems to be on the way out with the new rage normalization. Rogues are going to feel +skill nerfs, but I have faith in the devs that they are working on balancing the strengths and weaknesses of each class and why you would bring each of them into a raid.

not that there will be any official answer, but if there was, i doubt you'd like it.

it's been fairly evident (at least to me), that blizz dev and their CM have not been fencing with words in all their views of the rogue, pre and post 1.12. they really DO think the rogue class is fine, barring a few talent changes to tweak the class.

I think they still intend rogues to be the consistent designated damage dealers, though i am guessing their method of achieving this may not be to everyone's liking. it'll probably take shape in the form of rage nerf, encounter tweaking (requiring other damage classes to perform more of their utility roles).

but in the end, i just don't see blizz adding any new dimension to rogues. maybe if they did something interesting like an activatable skill based upon poison which would neutralize a boss ability for x-amount of time.. but it's all dreams. i just don't think blizz sees anything besides dps from the rogues in raiding.

i am enjoying playing a warrior anyways.

A few are switching to Paladins(IIRC it's one shaman, one priest, two rogues, and one warrior). I'm not sure whether Blizzard realizes, mostly because I'm really not sure what the raid game will look like at 70. I could be making a mountain out of a molehill, but right now it's feeling like the first month of Molten Core raiding all over again. From a raid perspective, our dps gain(Combat Potency) is canceled out by the loss of weapon skill. This situation leaves rogues defending their crown on the back of the static modifiers of their upgraded skills, which will probably hold out for a while. Once those static modifiers become irrelevant scalingwise, well, there's probably a fat lady singing somewhere.

No thanks. Don't want Tranq Shot. I too am thinking Enchancement Shaman if they don't nerf it's dps into the ground. I have a level 60 Warrior with decent gear but I don't enjoy playing it that much for some reason. Maybe because it doesn't have the gear to dps as well as my Rogue. If not Shaman I'll go Affliction Warlock or Shadow Priest. Hell, might go Shadow Priest anyway. >>

I know, but I love complaining, and the beta servers are currently down. Rampage is currently bugged such that you can simulate a raid buffed warrior(use it twice to get 640 AP), and rage generation is quite fine then. Often times, on the mobs in outlands I would do charge/intercept, rampage twice, BT. I wouldn't even get to WW, mob would be dead. But can you understand my apprehensiveness? Even with this nerf and all the other changes, I really think it would be helpfull to if Blizzard would give is a general idea of what they intend classes to do relative to one another.

I'm the exact opposite, but i think i'm just fed up with the DPS race.. maybe not fed up, but definitely jaded.

i feel that playing a rogue is fairly boring. I do as much damage as possible given my set gear. insert another rogue with similar understanding of the class, except with better gear, i become obsolete. There's some additional input like knowing when to back off, to watch your healer's mana/health, etc, but when it boils down to it, rogue performance is heavily based upon gear/selection (barring a rogue that just sucks at playing a rogue)

no thanks..

i want to play a class that requires some intelligent input from my end based upon real-time observations. someone that can actually make a meaningful difference in the outcome of the fight based upon your individual performance, not just a constance in the battle.

Reroll a new game IMO. I think any class can get monotanous after a while. But believe there's still plenty of crappy rogues out there, one that hit SnD once in a fight and then just use eviscerate because "it crits SO BIG (30% of the time)". Like I hear what you're saying, the DPS race can be taxing, but then consider your other options...

Tank - Aggro Race
Healer - Clicking Race
Pally/Shaman - Buffbot Race

*EDIT* You other classes rock btw. =D

I simply no longer have the desire to play a class that requires me to work as hard as I can to *maybe* eke out a 5-7% DPS advantage, if everything goes right, over a class that actually has *significant* functionality other than damage.

If raid encounters actually start requiring me to use my CC abilities, maybe it would help, but my faith in the devs to design raid encounters that encourage such things is limited; and even if they do throw a few in, I don't want *every* encounter to require adds/CC in order to make my role more than pure DPS. I want to see encounters that reward hybrids for being hybrids so that they can justifiably have their "focused" benefit reduced (if encounters value 85/60 splits, then there's no reason to give a hybrid more than 85% in their "focused" build). But I also want to see encounters where pure classes do more than just DPS (since there are no pure tanking or healing classes).

Basically, while I still have respect for Blizzard's overall game design talents, I have some doubts that they can successfully balance hybrid and non-hybrid classes within one game. Given that the trend seems to be towards hybrids, and I don't play one, you'll have to forgive me for my lack of excitement.

i rerolled a warrior because i found myself asking other warriors to do things all the time, where if i was a warrior, i coulda done it faster.

no, i don't really want to be the MT, nor really an OT. I still like to do DPS, but i want the ability to be versitile.

when i was running in AQ40, i was consistantly the first to notice snake adds on fank, on noth, first to pick up the mage adds, first to evasion tank raz, etc. as a rogue though, the benefit of being the first on the scene really does more harm than good most times (raz non-withstanding). I just feel that as a warrior, being hyper-aware of my surroundings will actually mean something, rather than just the guy on vent that's calling out new arrivals.

We'll always have the suppression room. (sarcasm)

The problem with doing that is if you do raid for a month at 70 the even start you get with others of your class is gone. Even assuming you have a 60 alt ready to go you will take another 2 week to a month to hit 70. At that time everyone will have a minimum of 2 months of progression on thier charecters. Its not huge, but if it comes down to Hmm, do we take Bob the mage who has full tier 3 and 4-6 TBC epics or Jim with random TBC blues/greens? I wouldn't want to be Jim.

Keep in mind most of us are going from a roster of ~60 to a roster of ~37. Thats a lot of people that are going to be sitting outside/looking for a guild/whatever. Slow rerollers will be very vulnerable to that effect.