tetracycloide

Which class and ability can replace kick as performed by a two rogue rotation with something equally reliable and cost efficent?

The idea that other classes get utility tacked on top of their DPS without penalty is absurd. Even a cursory glance of other classes abilites and talents reveals that there are only rare cases where a class provides something useful by doing what's best for their own DPS.

My vanity is justified.

 

◊ gwystyl

This is true, tetracycloide, but I think the disconnect here is one of *relative* penalty.

When a rogue has to babysit kicks, the wheels come off any semblance of a rotation. There is no "check your brain at the door" rotation to kick on RoS or Council. On Ros, this duty doesn't amount to just losing 25 energy every 10s. It's way worse. Specials are squandered, energy regen lost and any manner of optimizing play goes out the window when you have to make sure you will have sufficient energy *and* not be caught in the GCD. Yes, with debuffs, you have a large enough window that simply maintaining energy is sufficient, but you've paid a grievous toll in order to serve this purpose. On Council it's even worse. You're effectively a zero. Those are extreme cases, but I can't think of any dps class that is required to perform a role like that with such a cost.

It is the case that important utility debuffs cost other classes dps. Any lock not using CoD is sacrificing damage. Any Boomkin forced to maintain Imp FF (and even Insect Swarm) is losing GCD's that are non-trivial. They will see the damage loss.

 

Andread

Seems to me that one point in Opportunity would be worth more than HfB, which is pretty sad.

Also, considering how good your swords are and how mediocre your daggers the difference between Mutilate and combat swords is likely to be even greater. I for one am glad I have enough badges to grab the 103 dps MH dagger once 3.0 hits.

 

Manaba

With the changes to smooth energy regen and kick being off the GCD, "kick duty" will be much less detrimental to rogue dps in those fights.

This does not change the fact that, as has been pointed out repeatedly, many classes lose dps compared to optimal setups when providing utility yet rogues lose a disproportionate (greater) amount. Rogue dps is very tightly rotation based due to energy/cp mechanics and more than simply using up one more GCD. EA and poison utility is apparently seen by blues as our main lines of raid utility, yet the dps loss is incomparable to that of many other classes when contributing to utility. This is a problem even without touching on the debat of the actual viability of this "utility" developers believe we bring.

 

erragal

I agree with you entirely, the pentaly for maintaining a very tight interrupt control is very severe. But I've always been of the mind that as a reliable consistent player I want to have that responsibility in my own hands and would trade cyclone in a heartbeat just to have the opportunity to fulfill that role in a raid.

On a fight that requires heavy handed interrupting your role is far more important than any amount of DPS. On council in particular your DPS is equal to the amount of health you prevent being healed by kicking Circle of Healing and the number of people that stay alive by not having holy wrath and poison simultaneously. Now that kick and wind shock are off the GCD, it's going to at least lessen the rotation disruption in order to interrupt though I understand it will require tighter energy management that's going to lead to less DPS.

I suppose I just don't understand why you wouldn't want to be able to fulfill that role on a few fights, it's far more interactive and integral to the encounter than just being another DPS. If there was a raid encounter that required druids to sit there and chain hurricane for the debuff while being fed mana I would find that to be an interesting role to fulfill, even though my actual DPS contribution would be awful. It would likely be a very poorly tuned raid encounter, however.

Comparing energy conservation for kicks to debuff maintenence isn't quite fair because you won't be doing it on every fight (Similar to comparing it to wound/mind-numbing which are specific encounter abilities that can likely be provided by another spec at less of an opportunity cost in a 25-man). I do feel that they haven't entirely balanced the DPS cost of addedd utility for each spec, likely they have their hands full just getting ideal situation DPS in the ready to ship range. I do appreciate that you see the very real DPS loss some other specs see from their utility. There's a very similar situation with Hunters/Balance Druids really having to weigh the value of 3% hit versus significant DPS losses in WotLK.

 

VeeV's

Good question! Do you really call a 2rogue kick rotation cost efficient? I dont! Loosing 500-600dps or more per rogue because you have to kick is not cost efficient. Its a novel idea that worked for one fight in BC, and I sure hope they wont make a RoS V.2 in the expansion, but come up with something new.

Ive never said that we should get something amazing without penalty. All I was saying that the dps boosted utility classes are uncomparable, to an utility boosted rogue in raid value. We know what we are getting, the cat is out of the bag since a while and its pale in comparison.

 

tetracycloide

This is the crux of the matter here. I have performed a kick roation with other rogues before in raid encounters and the DPS cost never even approches 500-600+ per rogue. This is an extream overstatement of the difficulty and cost of applying your utility which has been a frequent occurance in the last several posts. Alarmist's sentaments aren't going to help anyone theorycraft anything in WotLK.

My vanity is justified.

 

Krollin

I have been catching up on the blue posts on blue.mmo-champion.com and there is an obvious trend in what is being said, in particular by Ghostcrawler.

On single target DPS: MMO-Champion BlueTracker - [Concern] State of Rogues In Raids

What is worrying about this is that the comment by Ghostcrawler completely ignores the fact that stacking classes will be less viable than ever. Having 12 Rogues doing DPS (or any 12 of any DPS class) in a 25 man will result in less effective Raid DPS.

It also misses the point about gearing up. The limiting factors which dictate against class/build stacking in 3.x and WotLK are already in place: items and buffs.

Given that the limits are already there, why are the devs using the "we don't want you to stack 12 of a class" as an argument against having Rogues be the top source of single target DPS?

They have made it clear that they want Mages to be the top source of AoE, are you going to stack mages in Raids?

While I certainly wouldn't dream of accusing Ghostcrawler or any other Blizzard dev a liar I do suspect a certain amount of disingenuity on the part of the blues posting with regard to the PTR/Beta and Rogues.

There has, in contrast, been some effort being made to reassure us that a Rogue's place in groups will be guaranteed on merit alone, ie for the potential the class brings.

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Dear GC/Koraa; Vital Questions about Rogues is a pretty mixed bag of answers.

Yes, Blizzard are making an effort to ensure there are reasons to take Rogues on Raids.
I hope they would be more than simply "well, we won't get anything out of a 4th <buffing class> so lets toss the Rogue a bone" type of reasons. Only time will tell.

 

VeeV's

Ill get a wws of some progress attempts where dps matters, we can both agree that the regular BT farmrun is hardly relevant.

They have a few weeks to push out 3.0 to live and finish the expansion. I'm quite sure you're familiar about the state of the class on the Beta. I beg to be proven wrong and I usually steer clear from this kind of speculation, but when should we start to be alarmists?

 

◊ gwystyl

Interestingly enough, I *do* want to fulfill those roles on a few fights. Those 2 fights are among my favorites in TBC, for what it's worth.

I was just showing an example of the price we pay when put in a utility role.

My dps drops by about 2500 on Council when I'm kicking...
*ducks*

All kidding aside, we all know what is going to happen. Blizzard will fail at their endeavor for perfect parity. There will always be one class / spec that is better at maintaining a (de)buff no matter if the functional benefit of that (de)buff is the same. That class will be assigned the role of maintaining that benefit. The class that provides the most incremental benefit will then be stacked once all mandatory (de)buffs are covered. The alarmists feel that wont be a rogue, and therefore, rogues will not exist in 25 man raiding other than "special teams." I'd point to Master Poisoner and Savage Combat being good examples of how Blizzard is trying to work on the problem.

 

berg

Clearly the argument has to focus around the opportunity cost to apply your utility.

Some buffs have similar opportunity cost between classes.
Some have a moderate gap in the opportunity cost
Some have a gaping chasm in the opportunity costs.

Most buffs fall into the first two categories. A few examples being...
wf totem vs icy talons. Both minimal investments this would be group 1.
battle shout (moderate cost) versus BoM (effectively no cost) this would be group 2.

sunder (free if prot warrior, moderate cost if not) versus ea (absurd upkeep cost) would fall into group 3.


Hopefully we will not see any group 3's remaining by retail.

 

berg

With new hit mechanics an enhancement shaman with spell hit capped will perform the job of interrupter better anyways(effectively no personal cost).

 

Akka

Pummel (warrior) is actually a carbon copy of kick, and can be used just as easily.

And the point isn't that all other classes provides utility by doing what's best for their own DPS (though it's certainly the case for many, like Earth and Moon, Mortal Strike or Winter's Chill, which are completely passive debuff entirely included in the DPS rotation), but that in most (all ?) cases, they don't lose nearly as much as rogues by doing so.

And again, on of the problem is that if every class can reach rogue DPS fully buffed, it means that buff-provider classes have superior DPS outside these raids (as they still benefit from their own buffs increasing their personal DPS, while rogue only have his own personal DPS), and still retain their hybrid advantage of being able to switch roles.

The advantage of the rogue lied in big DPS and low threat. Threat is, as it seems, a non-issue (to the point it will probably be changed, honestly, as tanks could keep aggro even on bugged crazy DPS), and there is officially no more "big DPS class". This means that rogues have lost their two main advantages relative to other classes, but have not, so far, gained anything special to compensate (and I suppose this is true for mages and warlocks as well).

If violence doesn't solve your problem...
... you simply haven't been violent enough !

 

Andread

They are not the same. It's why rogues kick Ros: Because 10s cooldown divided by 2 rogues is exactly the duration of kick's lockdown, 5 seconds. Pummel only lasts for 4 seconds.

 

Noktelius

( Very poor english incoming, have fun ^^ )


I would like to keep the poison skill with the ability to mix two components :

- One for utility purpose : Mind-numbing, Wound, Anesthetic, Crippling but without any dps effect...
( They could add an armor debuff, a melee haste debuff etc... )

- One for dps purpose : Instant or Deadly

You could prepare eight differents poisons...

For example :

MH : Instant n' Wound poison
OH : Deadly n' Crippling poison

No need for a new Deadly Brew !
No Expose Armor that break your cycles !
No need to trade dps for utility !

 

• sedrikk

Actually, it isnt. Kick locks out the school of the spell interrupted for 5 seconds, while pummel only locks it out for 4 seconds. With a 10 second cooldown trying to have 2 warriors interrupt on a fight like RoS will be impossible. There will be a 2 second window where both warriors will have their pummel on cooldown. While a 5 second lockdown with 2 rogues is exactly equal to the 10 second cooldown. You would need 3 warriors to do the job of 2 rogues.

Edit: Should have refreshed the page before replying see i was a few minutes late

 

Tinwhisker

The argument that Expose Armor is an egregious debuff for a rogue to keep up and that warriors should do it instead (either free through a prot tank or at lower cost through a DPS warrior) is the oldest in the book and was always resolved by the fact that they didn't (and don't, and won't) stack.

I don't think I've ever been in a raid group without either warrior tanks or warrior DPS. And that warrior DPS has always kept Sunder Armor up on bosses in the absence of a warrior tank without even being asked to. It's not terribly expensive or difficult for them to do and they've always been amiable to doing it.

I have a hard time believing that when 3.x or WotLK hits all the warriors are going to become total jerks and say to the rogues, "No, you do it. HAHAHAHA! ... Awe, it cripples your DPS? Then what good are you? GTFO!"

Of course, I've been wrong before.

As for raid buffs/debuffs that we can use (and are useful):

Rogues are getting raid viable debuffs through Master Poisoner and Blood Poisoning. Yes, there are other classes that can provide the same debuff, but those are our 'cheap' debuffs. They're basically zero cost to us.

So who are we competing with to provide the buffs? Ret paladins and arms warriors. From what I read, there will be few arms warriors raiding and we top both classes on escape mechanisms. If threat is put back into the game (I say not-so-jokingly), then Tricks of the Trade and Vanish become real desirable raid class skills again.


I may as well say this while I'm thinking it. I'm of the opinion that some mechanics that we see in the beta and in 3.x are broken on purpose and for a reason. Blizz is working on a tight timetable here and if the dungeons were tuned to a realistic level, they'd never be fully tested in time. The beta is full of what are basically PuGs testing the content, not guilds; why not tune them to an easier level to get the bugs out? They're also very aware of the 'tank shortage' on live so why not make threat a bit easier on tanks?

It makes sense that the dungeons would be tuned to an easier level for beta and cranked up for live. Beta needs everything tested so getting content cleared quickly is priority. Live is about monthly subscriptions so being able to clear all content in 2 weeks isn't good business.

Yeah, some guilds are going to rocket through Live Naxx10/25 but I don't think that's what Blizz wants. I'd like to think they're testing the mechanics now and tuning DPS/Healing but will tune the encounters to match that DPS/Healing between 3.x and live.

You're a lot of DPS, you know that? You wanna' earn 14 achievement points the hard way?

 

tetracycloide

With the new kick mechanics kick does not even require the GCD to be available for a rogue to kick. The DPS lost is exactly 25 energy per 10 secs which is certainly significant but not unreasonable for 50% uptime on school lockout. An enhancement shaman is probably not going to hit cap spells via hit rating if they're optimizing their gear for melee hit since there is very little melee utility for enhancement after hitting the yellow hit cap and the spell hit cap is significantly higher than the yellow hit cap. Furthermore the DPS lost by using a utility shock is not 'effectively zero.'

My vanity is justified.

 

◊ Shaker

You're also thinking about GCDs from a rogue perspective and not one of those dpsers - in the specific case of Mind Numbing poison, a destro lock losing a GCD (1.5s cast time) every 30 seconds is quite literally a 5% drop in DPS. Faerie Fire is 40s so slightly less, but honestly, in BC terms - it's about equal, if you're looking at deadly doing 4-5% of your overall dps.

Consistency. It's only a virtue if you're not a screwup.

 

Tinwhisker

Remember though that in WotLK, poisons have become a much bigger player in our DPS.

The comparison is true pre-Wrath, but after 3.x we get the shaft on that deal while warlocks take no further penalty.

You're a lot of DPS, you know that? You wanna' earn 14 achievement points the hard way?

 

pdpi

While rogue utility is a bit weak atm, I think it's a bit unfair to criticize the "EA is part of your utility" line from Blizzard -- at least quite as much as is fashionable.

Provided you're expected to actually bring that utility to the table (ie, no prot warrior keeping sunders up), there's a seriously large debuff missing on the boss: the armour debuff we take for granted today. I'm pulling numbers out of my arse here, but I'm willing to bet that expose armour is only bested as a personal dps finisher by slice and dice. (Best I could find is an estimate of 11k armour for lvl80 bosses, which would drop their armour to 7k. That's better than 10% extra physical damage, if I'm not mistaken).

 

Najani

This is what happens to rogue dps on council.... http://wowwebstats.com/o4gbartjp5jdq?s=30328-61557 (One rogue kicking and deadly throwing all physical interrupts.)

Granted Council is the least friendly interrupt fight in TBC, still 119 dps from a pure dps class is a big hit. Not to mention it may be the most boring 10 minutes of my life.

 

◊ gwystyl

I think you're missing the point, pdpi. It's the cost and inelegant application of the debuff, not the end-result. The initial stack takes a ~8s to apply during which we're operating without Slice and Dice, then an additional 10s before we can get to our normal mode of operation with SnD running. Every time there is a break of time on target, the whole cycle has to be started again. It's pretty asinine.

 

sp00n

So, despite saying I wouldn't do a test for Shiv, I had some time on my hands and made a 22 minute session beating the same mob in Dire Maul as in my previous Sinister Strike testings (so basically 2 instead 4 runs, but in one session instead of 2).

I had no Shiv glyph equipped, my DPS increased by 54 nonetheless, from 1720 to 1774.


Energy pooling is quite difficult with a combat build and Shiv, I capped to 100 energy even more than on my SS testing. I didn't help that the server lagged more than on my previous testing, neither did the absence of a good energy meter that 'streams' like the original Blizzard frame.

Adrenaline Rush with Shiv was horrible. You just smash the button like a madman, I had a feeling like playing Summer Games. Can't even imagine having a Shiv glyph and performing AR.

 

Jeszra

i think you might have misinterpreted the post made by ghostcrawler. i believe the intentions behind the post were that if everyone is stacking aoe classes for their aoe and single target dps ability, that those classes may be tweaked to lower their single target dps.

though this is concerning -

Unless you have high level alts in other classes, this new thought process may sound foreign to you. In BC, you might sit down to build a raid by saying that you need X shamans for WF and Bloodlust, 3-4 paladins for all their blessings, a Disc priest for Spirit, 2 Shadow priests for mana, a warlock for Curse of Shadows, etc.

In LK, you can get all the "needed" buffs in a relatively small number of players. After that you take who you want. If rogues were clearly the best dps in most situations, you would fill up your raid with maybe 5-6 rogues. But now what you really want to do is fill up your raid with the best *players*. That may be rogues for some guilds, but it may be mages, Ret pallies or death knights for others. Any group that leaves really good rogues out in order to bring a bunch of redundant buffs does so at its peril. Much more of the emphasis will be on gear and skill now, and less on the magic buff that earns you a raid slot.

The only time I can see this being a problem is if A) you aren't a very good player (sorry) and you were just brought along before because there was nobody else to do Kings or WF, or B) you like to pug a lot and pugs can't evaluate your skill, so they take you for your class instead.