Fair enough I suppose. Personally I've come to terms with the inherent shortcomings of the rogue class, and am not ready to start dealing with the shortcomings of another class. As fun as it would be to start delving into the mechanics of say a shaman, paladin, or druid and their hybrid roles, I think I enjoy the stability that being a pure class offers. Most of the thoughts of "Why would a raid bring a rogue?" come internally from the rogue community as opposed to guild leaders. Frankly even if I not the best damage dealer in the raid, I still love the ability to take a week off of raiding, respeccing to a PvP build and sneak attacking ppl, and that aspect of the rogue will never change.

What seperates the different PvE DPS classes is how they PvP. Mages are all about frost nova -> blink -> pwn, and Shadowpriests are all about melting faces, etc. etc.

I love dealing damage, and I love being a sneaky bastard when I respec for PvP every now and then. It's all about what feels right I guess, and even after rolling other classes during boredom spurts, my rogue has always felt right.

High motherfucking five.

Seriously, I respect folks' decision to be concerned with whether they're 8% or 15% ahead of the next class on DPS, but that kind of thing really doesn't concern me. My guild has made good progression (with precisely one of our 6 rogues specced Combat Daggers) and we all enjoy PvE and PvP. The raid game IS important to me, but rogues are about more than just damage, just as this game is about more than just raiding.

I mean, lets say Mages COULD outdps most of the time. So? They have to stand still to cast, they are limited by mana (fricking annoying even when grinding, I can tell you), and y'know, they can't turn invisible and pwnz0r (don't even go there :P). Did I mention not being able to move and fight? Man is that annoying.

If anything, I'm considering re-rolling a BE rogue purely because wow, they have the BEST stealth animations. The new troll fast-stealth-walk really sucks. The main thing stopping me rerolling is the possible difficulty getting another Renataki's (!)

Call me a cynic if you will, but I predict that 90% of ex-rogues who reroll due to the alleged inferiority of rogues, within a month or two of raiding as their new class, will be whining about how nerfed and inferior that class is.

Its hard to imagine. Other classes provide utility, so even if their dps is nerfed or their decursing is nerfed there is some other aspect to their raid role. Rogues are a fairly shallow pool to drain any water from. Yes people will vent about any perceived adjustments to their class, rogues will just react stronger because they dont have those fall back aspects to their class.

If you don't enjoy playing a rogue then by all means that's a great reason not to play a rogue. But to switch classes because you don't think it'll be as good in an unknown raiding situation 10 levels from now is a bit much, I think.

Not really. There's no better time to do so than now. It's a risk. But so is continuing to play a Rogue at this point. This is a reset, a chance to make a fresh start without the risk of all that gear the guild helped you acquire won't matter. It may turn out that somehow Rogues are just fine, but looking at the direction the class has been going many will see it as the only opportunity to change classes without stepping on toes.

This *may* be for balance reasons. Rogues are probably the class in the game that gets the biggest DPS-boost from raid buffs. Since none of these buffs come from the Rogue herself this at least in the past has allowed the Rogue to be the best single target dps in the raid without dealing unbalaced amounts of damage in PvP. Imagine how good a Rogue would be in PvP if we could buff ourselves with Battle Shout, Blessing if Kings, Blessing of Might and Trueshot Aura. *dreams* (Yes, I have been buffed in PvP in the past, but it has been a rare occurrence :).)

This *may* also just be an invention of mine.

So you don't have any emotional connection to the class or playstyle?

I mean, if you don't ENJOY roguing, by all means switch. That was really the point of my post. I've read 1000 posts on the mage boards complaining about decurse fights because they 'just want to dps', ditto with hunters. It's PURE grass is greener syndrome here. A pity invite? Get real- we stack rogues if we can, currently, because their dps is so good.

Yes Kalgan's comments are maybe worrying, but how do you know how things will pan out? What if you roll a mage and then a month into raiding find you don't like it, or that rogues are still ahead? What will you do then? It's the same risk in reverse.

Lastly, I'd hope your guild and you DO have an emotional connection. We're a community. If I really hated my rogue a month in and wanted powerlevel an alt to 70, then I expect I probably would get a spot when I got there. They're not going to get in some random to replace me in 4 weeks, and equally, it's not like you can run a raiding guild with exactly 40 member (to be 25), so you wont be stopping them doing anything, either.

You're going too far though. You're counting buffs that have to come from four seperate classes (two paladins, a hunter and a warrior). How do you figure an aura that granted party members say, 5-10% speed increase, but doesn't stack with Slice and Dice, overpowered? The idea of going 41 points deep into Combat for some group utility would appeal to me a great deal.

And it would be nice to have a reason to be placed in so-and-so a group rather than being in the shaman/warrior group to sponge buffs.

It would be pretty hilarious to see a tank group in the expansion with an insane group make up to take advantage of all kinds of group buffs (Tank, Imp. Imp warlock, Imp. Weapon Totems shaman, Devotion Aura paladin, Speed Aura rogue).

Actually I wouldn't think that aura was overpowered even if it did stack with SnD. After all, this would be mostly a PvE-boost with only minor impact on PvP.

wtf are you talking about, Zellyn?

Context is everything here. "I know mages are feeling very nerfed right now..", in response to 7 questions -- none of which were about their place on raid damage meters.

I just don't see it. I for one will wait to see what kind of damage I do with BoK, Windfury, new sets, and 10 more talent points before I start crying about it.

I enjoy playing my rogue.

I have a mage alt I am working on, I enjoy playing mages too (Have played several level 60 well geared mages =).

My rogue is and always will be my main. I DO want the option of the mage though.

I firmly believe that if rogues turn out to be poor DPS in raid environments, we will get fixed. Look at the other classes that were fixed, such as warriors and locks. They were both poor at something, and they both got fixed.

So sure, it might look bad now. We might have a hard time levelling, but do you play only to show off to others? or do you play for your own self enjoyment (and if the only enjoyment you get is being BETTER than others, thats a personality issue best discussed with your therapist.)

I enjoy a rogue. The stealthing around, the decent burst damage. I would rather be moving around to keep a mobs back to me constantly instead of just sitting back on a raid and shooting frostbolts.

So simply put if you are one of those players who likes to chase the current flavor of the month, then go for it. Its the perfect time for a change. If you are a person who is simply just bored with your rogue and wants to try something else, then just go for it! If you want to play your rogue because even if we are not top DPS, we should still be signficantly high on DPS and you ENJOY playing a rogue, then stay with your rogue.

There is no need to have 70 pages of text to help you choose what to do =)

All of our rogues are top 10 on patchwerk every fight.
The last few times they've been 1,3,4,5,7,9 and 2,3,4,6,7

Maybe our other DPS people are just crap?.....

I think you may be confused as to why many are wanting to re-roll. Many of the people that are contemplating rerolling are people that are very familiar with raid mechanics and realize that outside of damage our class has no job. We don't offer anything outside of dps. If another class even approaches our numbers and offers something to the raid it in fact, does mean that the grass is greener. These are people that know raids, and want to bring something more to the table if thier primary role is equaled or similarly matched by another class. They're looking for more work essentially, because they'll be able to offer more to the group.

It's not directly the fact that someone "might" outdamage a rogue.. it's the fact that another class can at very least come close and still offer much more to a raid. I think it's a very valid reason to consider rerolling personally.


The sad thing is, many of the people considering rerolling are flagships of the rogue community. I don't know how often the blues lurk this forum but this should send all kinds of red flags up.

Ok, you took weapon skill away, now give us a crowd pleaser to replace it. And do it quick.

Patchwerk is the one fight, where all circumstances are set in favor of a rogue. Its a static encounter without any aoe component.

I understand the feeling that some people get that, for example, mages do just as good single target DPS, WAY better AE DPS and bring buffs/CC to the table aswell. So some people may think well, I can play a mage and do more than just second rate dps and nothing else.


But I sincerely do not believe it will remain like that. Even after TBC is out, the classes will change. Some will get buffs, others nerfs. If rogues are consistantly slaughtered in DPS by utility classes, such as mages/pallies/druids etc then I would expect rogues to get fixed.


And then when rogues now do the top DPS bar none what will happen to all these rogues who switched to mages? they switch back?


See, the bottom line is, you play what you ENJOY and trust that the balance issues will get fixed. Otherwise you might just be class hopping and achieving nothing. So quit looking into your crystal balls and saying that rogues will be useless in the expansion when you can do the same DPS and have more utility as a mage, because if you TRULY believe blizzard is "out to get you (rogues)" then you are cRaZy.

How about you start looking at your class as it is right now, do some research into TBC and realize your class is still exactly the same. Realize that many people want more than straight up dps, and realize that currently there is no evidence of this ever changing.

Most of us here are competent enough to min/max skills and itemization to claw at the dps meters, that's not what we're concerned with. We want something more.

No offense, but why did you roll a rogue? Unless you rolled it in Nov. 2004, ever since MC hit it was quite obvious that rogues are nothing more than straight up dps. In raids. With a lot of cool ninja stuff outside them.

Because when you're a pure dps class and you're the best at your job by far (2004-2005) it's fun, you don't care about buffs or whatever "utility" means. You just know you don't have to heal and you get to stab things all the day long. As the game progresses you become more aware of the game within the game, the fact that many things go on outside of your role. Then you notice that with proper itemization and skillsets other classes are dangerously close to your role (2006) and you have nothing else to offer.

Suddenly you realize you are the kid at hockey tryouts wearing snowshoes, asking for a spot on the team.

and also your DPS warriors don't know how to itemize, and fire mages don't like to work together.

this has been gone over many times, and one of the glaring examples of why rogues are not fine. when you give a fight where everything's tailored toward the rogue, and the rogues are still not easily ahead of the pack, there's something wrong.

Umm you do realize that raids will be at least a month or more into release, right? There's plenty of time to balance this out and I expect that they will if there are severe imbalances. It seems foolish to abandon a class that you know to join the flavor of the month club.

Playing on the TBC test server, I gotta tell you I remember why I loved playing a rogue in the first place.

1) Stealth is a huge advantage in world pve and pvp. We can stealth to quest objectives and selectively choose targets (collect 20 boxes of x, kill joe-bob the ogre leader, etc). I can pick most of my fights. I don't need to kill the 30 guards to get to my objective. I don't need to engage that level 70 mage, I can just avoid him. If they don't know you're there, they can't come kill you. That's huge.
2) Mobs can't flee from me if I'm using poison. If they do manage to resist the poison I have 2 finishers to stop them (at 64) + a talent to slow them down.
3) In PVE I can lockdown a caster and prevent them from ever getting a spell off
4) My cooldown abilities (combat sword build) are perfect for dealing with large groups of mobs at once if something goes wrong. I get a clickable AP buff trinket early, I can do limited AOE, and I cannot be hit for 15 seconds every 3.5 minutes.
5) Almost every single mob can be stunned. Again, this is a very big deal when you're trying to complete quests (even elites can be stunned).
6) I'm able to solo elite quests that are 2-3 levels over me. Some of that is gear, some of that is my class/spec. I can lock them down and burn them down.
7) I have a get out of jail free card with vanish. Doesn't matter if I screw up a pull or run into a pat.

Also, all you doom and gloom guys need to realize that in a raid we will most likely have an enhancement shaman (10% more AP + totems), 3 paladin blessings (might, BoK, salvation), an arms warrior 4% damage buff, improved hunters mark, and battleshout going. That's a lot of synergistic buffs that we don't have today. Mages aren't going to be able to roll an ignite, warriors are going to be generating less rage for the damage they deal, and hunter's dps will be limited by their mana.

I still top the damage meters in all the 5 man content I've been running so far (and yes, that's with hunters and mages that are equally geared). I really think you guys are getting a bit too worked up over the changes. Yes, we need to change our playstyle, and yes, white damage will no longer be 60% of our dps. With several of the new talents, it looks like yellow damage is going to be a much larger share of our output.