You don't get to see who you're fighting, but it's really easy to figure out how many people are stealthed when the doors to open and you see 3 red names in a 5v5 match.

*Perception*

Oh, there they are.

to all those that take the line of "everything will be balanced out, guilds won't be running raids without any rogues", etc, i pose this question from the other side:

suppose, just for a second, that suddenly the rogue-class just didn't exist anymore. where in the game would raiding suffer, outside of the suppression room?

when it's boiled down to something that simple, it's hard to argue against why rogues feel slighted.

wotf vs locks/priests

I would argue that wotf is more powerful against those 2 classes than perception is against rogues.

...and at that time a collective cheer from every raiding Druid, Warrior, Hunter and now Shaman, was heard across Azeroth. So much so that even the Outland heard rumblings of the celebration. This was the start of what they who once did have to pass on treasures of desire, called the new golden age.

ROFL

Arguable. Priests, maybe, in that if you WotF out of a fear, they have 25-30 seconds to wait to refear, but locks can wait out the immunity and Deathcoil/Fear. Rogues generally have a harder time recovering from losing stealth at range (yes, they can vanish, but most classes can either DoT them, or have an AoE they can use to pull them back out).

And I honestly can't think of another racial with as much applicability to the discussion (Escape Artist? Even instacast, it's hardly make/break for a matchup, except maybe 1v1 rogue vs. frosty).

I've basically been running every arena match I can get my hands on, giving higher priority to larger team sizes.

In 2v2, the team with the better healer generally wins. In 3v3, the team that targets the other team's healer first generally wins - rogues are strong here when paired with a second DPS in the case of a single healer on a 3v3 enemy team, but are rather weak if they don't have a teammate to assist against an enemy target due to teammates being split on other targets, or what have you. In 5v5, the team that takes care of their healer(s) best generally wins - assist trains and secondary heals > rogues trying to gank healers.

As far as seeing through stealth goes, Perception is hardly the only option. You know how many people are there. You know how many you can see. Simple math tells you if there's a stealthed enemy nearby, and then you can use Perception, Paranoia (provided a Felhunter), AE spam, Demo Shout/Roar Spam, aggressive totems, Flare, or Consecration to pull them out of stealth. The arenas aren't that large, and since they're effectively just team duels, the parameters are fairly well known. A rogue will be relatively close to his unstealthed team members, as he is most powerful working on a teammate's target. Rogues move slower than everyone else while in stealth, and thus, can't afford to range all over too much. We rely on melee range to contribute, so if you can't find a rogue with AE/flare, he isn't a danger to you for a bit anyway. The enclosed arena and straightforward parameters of the match severely limit places that the rogue can be, and the rogue either has to stay out of the fight, or has to put himself into a position to be pulled out of stealth by anything resembling AOE.

When you're in a team match, you don't have the luxury of "picking your battles" so much. Your team picks them for you. If you don't contribute while waiting for your fight and let your team fight 4v5, your team is at a disadvantage, and every second you don't engage means another second that your team's relative strength versus your opponents weaken. We are forced into action, and thus, the other team can rather easily extrapolate a general likely area for a rogue and use counterstealth measures as necessary.

Not reliably. Ironically, it's one of those circumstances where the better your connection is, the worse off you are.

IMO mutilate itself is too unreliable for pvp. I had a much easier time with backstab and combat at 70 than mutilate... Sure less combo points and pvp utility, but at least i have a good chance to hit for over 450 for 60 energy. ;)

Mutilate as a whole needs some work.

Wotf out of fear. Trinket out of fear. Next fear/seduce is at most 3 seconds, sprint to catch up and you are in good shape. Perception on the other hand, unless you pop perception within 18yds of the rogue, spell alert will make sure the rogue can wait it out. I'm not saying its worthless, but I dont think perception can hold a candle to wotf in terms of utility.

Perception is stupidly useful in the arena. In the Nagrand arena, I just pop it when the gates open and I can find stealthed targets trivially, 100% of the time. The combo of the fact that I know they're there and that they can't be far away combined with Perception effectively guarantees that I'll see them.

Another thing to keep in mind is that perception doesn't see through vanish. Though blowing a vanish just to get close to a frost mage is pain. Much hate for those human frost mages.

I'm going to have to agree with Valen on Backstab over Mutilate in Arenas. Granted I don't have a beta key, but I have been trying it out on the very laggy PTR. Everything I had heard, I've confirmed. Yes, it can pack a nice whallop if the target is poisoned and it double crits. But you run into serious problems when you're fighting multiple opponents. In small group battles, you frequently have to switch targets to adjust to rapidly changing conditions. Having your primary damage attack hit for slightly harder than a wet noodle for those first few seconds is shooting yourself in the foot. I'm sure Mutilate will make a nice dueling spec, but it really has no place in the arena.

As for the Perception issue, yes, its going to be frustrating as hell. But you can work it to your own advantage. Remember that people generally loath Rogues, and if they see a chance to go after one while stealthed, they are likely to stop doing what they should be doing. If they waste 1-2 people trying to hunt you down while stealthed at the start, thats 1-2 people not CC'ing the rest of your team or chain nuking your healers. Make your enemy's hate for you work against them.

I'm with Nejyn on this. I tried an ultra dps gimped Prep/CoS build on the PTRs and was kicking ass.

You don't need damage with 2 x vanish and 2 x cos. Casters cant do anything when you have 10 seconds of complete immunity. And you get 3 x cheapshots.

All your description really backs up is my feelings about mutilate. It's currently pretty weak in PvP. ANY arena build without Prep is gimped, sadly. It's a shame that it's such a must-have talent. But it just is.

At 70, how can any Arena dagger build compete with 31/8/22? I dont think it can. Maybe in 5vs5 man where you're less noticed could Mutilate work. But I'm not so sure.

Rogues will always be weak in 2vs2. The game is barely balanced around 2vs2, and the strongest 2vs2 team is probably 2 x Paladins. Try to get in a good team with a Priest/Shaman. PW:Shield and Pain Suppression are both purge/dispellable. And yes, Hunters are absolute monsters at all Arena levels. Especially BM ones.

Shadowstep > Perception. I don't see a dual Rogue team being that weak in 2v2. With the right spec mix it can be deadly. A Sub Rogue mixed with any kind of burst Rogue, whether it be AR/BF or Mutilate or 31/8/22 will be deadly. 2 Blinds will be difficult to counter unless both classes can cleanse, and even then one will be locked down tight by the Sub Rogue while the Burster goes to town. 2 Rogues have an obscene number of ways to gain the upperhand by taking one opponent out of the fight from the start. Shadowstep -> Improved Sap. Blinds, especially with Prep builds. And stuns when taking the lone opponent out. I actually think 2 Rogues will make a very strong combo against anything that isn't a very good Paladin/Warrior duo. Since the Paladin can bubble out of the CC and lock and BoP the Warrior who has obscene hp anyway. Frost Mage/Warlock with Feldoggy out would be a pain as well, but more than possible with all the tools 2 well played Rogues will have at their disposal.

I fail to see how Rogues will be so gimp in the Arenas, with 2x CoS for 10s of (almost) spell immunity, 2x Evasion for 30s of insane dodging + 50% chance to avoid ranged attacks, 2x Sprint, 2x Vanish, 2x Blind etc. Ofcourse this assumes a deep Sub rogue, but that is the Arena build. You can't always get the best PvP results out of the the best PvE specs - look at deep Holy priests.

Some ideas i have for combat talents. Well i know it's pointless, but sometimes i can't stop thinking "hey would be cool if we had this talent"...

Change Blade twisting to: "Increases the critical strike chance of your OffHand attacks by 7-15%"
+
Change SA to: "Your Offhand critical strikes have a 20% chance to give 100% critical strike chance to your next main hand white attack. The following Main hand attack will do full shadow damage"

Or another idea:

Change SA to a strike on 20 second cooldown and 30 Energy: "Strikes your target with an amount equal to 75% of your Attack power. Also, increases the damage done by your backstab and sinister strike abilities by 4% for 20 second. Stacks up to 5 times. Every Backstab or sinister strike will renew the duration. This strike can not crit".

I would love such a talent. Basically it would give us the sustained dps we need in the long stationary fights without making us overpowered in pvp. The idea is that your backstabs will keep getting stronger every 20 second, up to 20% after 1:40 minutes.

Well maybe some blizzard designer reads this! (no)

I heard from a shaman I was partying with that his spells were getting interrupted when he got dazed. If that's a new mechanic, it makes bladetwisting semi-useful and adds to our lockdown abilities - it would also make for another argument to use faster offhand weapons. I'm going to give it a whirl on TBC beta later this week.

Edit: Also, SA in its current form allows me to kill subtlety rogues with relative ease. Not saying it shouldn't change, but it is pretty amusing when we both hit evasion and I splat him while he misses every attack.

Interesting.

Heck, how about an attack that is on a 30 second cooldown that is based on how much energy you have when you use it?

100 energy = an attack equal to 100% of your attack power
60 energy = an attack equal to 60% of your attack power
etc.

the attack would consume 100% of whatever energy you had at the time it is used, also would consume all combo points on target.

Would make for a nice risk vs. reward talent.

I had this wierd idea for Surprise Attacks.

Now its Surprise Strike:
10 Energy z cooldown (10s?)
A surprise attack that deals 1xx (~125%?) weapon damage. Only usable after an is dodged, missed, or parried.
Causes next y (3?) attacks to be automatically critical.

Just a random idea.

I don't even know how good it would be, but it'd be fun to play with.

I actually really like the idea of an instant strike that is lit up by misses, has a Riposte like cooldown, does not add combo points but is solid damage. It would allow raiders to have access to a high damage low energy extra strike that could easily be added to raid cycles (and complimented by Combat Potency) without interupting SnD. It's PvP uses would be limited, as combo points are half our power in taking down an opponent.

Bump my threads.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=4

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