Feral Druids aren't intended to do equal DPS to a Rogue (min/max in similar gear). That said, they should scale as well as you do, which is what that post meant.
This seems a much more reasonable position, and it's something I'm happy to see ferals getting. While they shouldn't be where Rogues are, they should increase from starter lvl 80 5 mans to killing Arthas by the same margin as anyone else - To say they shouldn't is just stupid really, and I'm pretty sure it's all the cat's were ever asking for to begin with. At least, I hope it is .
1) Last I checked, LotP is now raid-wide.
2) If you need more than the 3 BRes/Innervates that the first Feral, Resto, and Balance druid in the raid bring, you're doing something wrong. Yes, I think the ability to cloak, stun, etc. is more useful than the 4th and 5th battle res. If you brought 6-8 melee DPS to KJ and none of them could remove the debuff themselves, Fire Blooms would eat you alive.
I mean, lets review for a moment. Which would you rather have on the following fights?
* Kil'jaedan. A 4th brez and innervate, or the ability to cloak off Fire Bloom, stun the adds, and pop cooldowns to do extra DPS during certain phases?
* M'uru. The ability to stun the mage adds and blade flurry down the others, or a 4th brez and innervate?
* Illidari Council. The ability to kick heals and keep wound poison up on various targets, or a 4th brez and innervate?
* Gurtogg Bloodboil. The ability to Evasion through Fel Rage and manage aggro extremely well, or a 4th brez and innervate?
I could go on, but you get the point. I'm not saying druids don't provide some nice things. They do. The point is that not all druids need be feral. Once you've brought the boomkin, tree, and feral that you want to have for other reasons, bringing further ones for additional redundancy on those abilities strikes me as relatively less useful than bringing rogues.
My *real* point is that there's a lot more sophistication to the balance situation than most people are willing to admit. The comparison between DPS ferals and DPS rogues has a lot more aspects to it then who pumps out the larger numbers. The issues with balance in 5 mans is not Blizzard ignorance or actively screwing us; it's a systematic problem due to the fact that we have stealth
Blizzard is not stupid. On the contrary, the success of their game(s) is a strong indicator that they have a very good idea what they're doing. Hence, assuming that they don't know what they're doing is unlikely to get you very far. It's generally more productive to analyze these things under the assumption that there's a method to the madness. We analyze this game a couple hours a week in our spare time. They have some people who do it for a *living*. Hence, when you see something announced that you don't initially understand, you will get further if you assume there's some good reason behind it and try to figure out what it is, rather than assuming they're making some ridiculous mistake - as you will more often be right.
They're concerned about scaling, which is a very viable concern, given the lack of Ferals actually being used as primary DPS. Compare this to Shaman where Enhancement, and Elemental specs are regularly brought in under primary DPS roles and the problem with Feral Druids becomes pretty obvious.
EDIT: Feist beat me to the quote right as I was writing up my post.
EDIT 2: I'm glad you mentioned it Ald, because it's something I've believed all along -- Stealth is overpowered, and it's incredibly tough to design around. I'm not implying that I'd like to see it removed, but at the moment, it's a major contributor to the inherent balance issues with the class. Druids are somewhat hamstrung by it as well by virtue of cat form, though their options are certainly limited compared to those afforded to Rogues. I'm extremely curious to see what Blizzard has in store for their polish pass, and really, anyone that's been around for a while can tell you that it's normal for Rogues to go through this period of "the sky is falling -- we're going to be replaced by ferals / warriors / hunters!" during class passes, but at the end of the day, Rogues have always come out fine (it's just not always a smooth ride).
I think that's a legitimate concern, but it's not clear to me that there's really a solution to it, either. When you look at the balance of the game as a whole, there's really no way to avoid having rogues be buff sponges.
Fundamentally, there are two areas of interest in terms of balance in the general sense; PvP, and PvE. The challenge of the rogue class is this: we have an ability - stealth - that is quite powerful in PvP (particularly World PvP, but it still applies in BGs and to some extent in arenas) but is just this side of totally useless in PvE. Oh, sure, it has some minor advantages like letting one start fights from more advantageous locations, but there has never really been a PvE encounter where stealth was more than a convenience.
So, consider the conundrum. If rogues, on their own merit, had top-flight damage-dealing abilities and so forth, when combined with stealth, we'd be juggernauts in PvP - hence, in a toe-to-toe fight, we need to be, if anything, a bit weaker than most of the other classes, to account for the fact that we are more able to pick our battles than some classes. However, when we get to the PvE side of the spectrum, the fact that we have little or no utility means that we need to be, if anything, a bit stronger than the other classes. So the obvious question is: how do you make a class weaker in PvP environments and stronger in PvE environments? And the answer is, of course, to make them scale really well with the buffs that are present for raiding but not in PvP.
The problem with this approach is that it doesn't lead to a uniform power curve. Right now the class is very strong in solo/small group situations (solo farming, 1v1 and 2v2 PvP), and in a reasonable place for large group (25 man raids), but the realm in the middle - 5 and 10 man raids, 3v3 and 5v5 arena - we are weak. And it's a problem. But the challenge is: how do you make rogues better in these mid-size scenarios without making them overpowered on one end of the spectrum or the other? I think Blizzard realizes that there is a problem here - they're not idiots - it's just that there's no real good way of fixing the problem, either.
A very succinct explanation of the problem. However, wouldn't another solution be to make us a buffer as well as a good buffee? For example, if we went back to the old version of hemo where there were so many charges that in solo play you don't even come close to using them all, but in a 5 man or higher most or all of them would be used, then aren't you in a situation where an ability provides marginal benefit in PVP (you can't use all the charges) but could provide a much greater benefit in groups?
Some encounters will certainly need OTs, some always have, but the idea that a DPS maximized fury warrior is going to be able to tank anything of significance merely by tossing on a one-hander and shield is laughable.
It wouldn't be that difficult to design; they just need some adds similar to those in the Lurker fight, but make them hit a bit harder, necessitating the use of a shield or Bear Form.
--edit--
That said, I don't think such encounter design would eliminate the desire to bring rogues at all, for reasons stated better by others, particularly Aldriana.
Last edited by hannigaholic : 08/05/08 at 4:32 PM.
Oops. I thought I had read that it does. In that case, it does to some extent reduce the impact of my arguments, but it doesn't totally invalidate them, either; it's still true that the 2nd and subsequent ferals provide significantly less benefit than the first one. I imagine that they're going to balance it such that the first one is slightly better than bringing yet another rogue, and the second and subsequent ones are somewhat worse, such that bringing one is usually a good idea (though not essential) but bringing more than that is usually a bad idea (but not crippling). This probably involves giving them a 20% damage boost relative to their current Sunwell performance, which definitely qualifies as a significant buff.
Originally Posted by Macblade
A very succinct explanation of the problem. However, wouldn't another solution be to make us a buffer as well as a good buffee? For example, if we went back to the old version of hemo where there were so many charges that in solo play you don't even come close to using them all, but in a 5 man or higher most or all of them would be used, then aren't you in a situation where an ability provides marginal benefit in PVP (you can't use all the charges) but could provide a much greater benefit in groups?
Yes, although the challenge with this is in the implementation. For independent reasons you generally want all the rogues in the same group, so providing a group buff is unlikely to work very well; and you only need one rogue to keep up a raid buff. Hence, while making us good buffers would guarantee us one slot, they need some other mechanic to get us up to the 2.5 raid slots we deserve.
Also note that with the effort being put into making non-warrior MTs viable, the value of Expose Armor goes up considerably. There are certainly still fights where you will want to use Sunders instead, but I suspect it's going to start being pretty common for guilds to have a rogue running Imp Expose on many fights. But, again, that's only one spot. And even if Hemo did enough damage to be relevant - that would *still* only be one slot, as a 11/39/21 rogue could do both. So the arguments about being a good buffee still apply for us getting our 2nd and sometimes 3rd raid slots.
And even if Hemo did enough damage to be relevant - that would *still* only be one slot, as a 11/39/21 rogue could do both. So the arguments about being a good buffee still apply for us getting our 2nd and sometimes 3rd raid slots.
Actually, an 11/39/21 rogue couldn't do Imp. Expose Armor. Just the normal version. Which, in live, is not quite as good as 5 stacks of sunder (Haven't looked at new ranks to see if this is different in Wrath).
Now, a Rogue specced something like 13/37/21 could, but at 2 points in combat potency, I don't know if it'd be worth the filler to go that far, you're wasting a lot of points on stuff like blade twisting or Endurance - if you're really going to make only one rogue be 'Debuff Bitch,' you'd be better off with that Rogue going up to Weapon Expertise in Combat, and then just filling up to take some points in deadliness, or filling out Lethality, poison talents, and maybe cold blood.
Really though, a Rogue with any of those specs would be a pretty poor trade versus just bringing a second rogue, one as hemo, and one as either straight combat or muti.
Additionally, if our 'utility,' is going to be our ability to stunlock adds, thats another strong vote in favor of heavy assasination builds - specifically ones picking up Imp. Kidney Shot.
Fair enough; I'd forgotten that Hemo builds don't make it down to Imp Expose Armor. Note, however, that Hemo would need to provide a significant raid DPS benefit rather than barely covering the personal DPS loss of the spec before that even begins to be relevant - it would probably need to provide triple (or more) the damage boost that it currently does before it would start to justify it's raid spot.
Fair enough; I'd forgotten that Hemo builds don't make it down to Imp Expose Armor. Note, however, that Hemo would need to provide a significant raid DPS benefit rather than barely covering the personal DPS loss of the spec before that even begins to be relevant - it would probably need to provide triple (or more) the damage boost that it currently does before it would start to justify it's raid spot.
While it's true that Hemos debuff, in not scaling with itemization, eventually lags rather far behind other specs, it's true in entry level gear/content in TBC, and I'd imagine that it likely will be true again in WOTLK, that until scaling kicks in at higher gear levels, the debuff will likely be a valuable net DPS increase. The question of what gear level it's outpaced at, is of course, going to be entirely dependent on itemization.
If Blizz is moving towards encouraging us to make better use of our CC abilities, a Hemo spec would also be noticeably better at that.
Well, yes and no. I mean, the thing to keep in mind is that most true group/raid buffs provide DPS benefit to the raid on the order of several hundred DPS. Leader of the Pack is ~100 DPS to 4 people, or ~400 DPS. Battle Shout is ~150 DPS to 4 people, or ~600 DPS. Ret Pally raid buffs easily can reach 750 DPS. Survival Hunter buffs are up in that range as well. Hence, Hemo's 100 DPS really just isn't in the same category right now. If it were, say a 5% damage boost to all damage done to the target for the next 2 seconds, we could talk about it as a valid raid buff. But at the moment, it just doesn't make sense to talk about it in terms of being a "raid buff". No one is ever going to respec a rogue Hemo because they need the raid buff like people do with Survival Hunters.
This is obviously a short duration test, and I'm new here...but I was wondering if anyone is noticing sword spec from an offhand hit proccing an offhand swing? I am noticing this especially as Fist/Sword, which I just recently changed back to based on modeling in the roguecraft spreadsheet.
My Sword Spec damage so far tonight is showing as:
39 hits - 184 min, 242 avg, 322 max
20 crits - 369 min, 547 avg, 691 max
Like I said, a very small sample. But I'm not thinking those look like MH swings.
Is this a known mechanic, or did this change in the background?
This is obviously a short duration test, and I'm new here...but I was wondering if anyone is noticing sword spec from an offhand hit proccing an offhand swing? I am noticing this especially as Fist/Sword, which I just recently changed back to based on modeling in the roguecraft spreadsheet.
My Sword Spec damage so far tonight is showing as:
39 hits - 184 min, 242 avg, 322 max
20 crits - 369 min, 547 avg, 691 max
Like I said, a very small sample. But I'm not thinking those look like MH swings.
Is this a known mechanic, or did this change in the background?
Class changes deployment frequency during Beta Test
Seriously though, it's easier for to focus on only a couple of classes at a time. We find that way we are more in sync on the direction of the class and its problems. We don't work in an environment where each person goes to their desk, throws in the talents for one class, and then we pour them all into the game. A lot of the time it's 10% actual talent implementation and 90% brainstorming and discussion.
Mages recently got a fair amount of attention and death knights always do, just because they have the most catching up to do to the years of analysis and design that's been done on the other classes.
But even then, you're more likely to see ability changes than number adjusting. We need to feel like the abilities have a chance of working out before we go into the mode of comparing everyone's dps and threat and survival in a variety of situations. The encounter design and item design need to be at that level too. We're still debating things like encounters and raid stacking will work. Think about all the changes: many stats are universal now (meaning melee hit and spell hit are the same as far as items are concerned), most buffs affect the entire raid, we're trying to offer fewer very specialized items as random drops, etc. etc. It ends up being a lot of changes all with ramifications for every class.
Raid Composition in WotLK
Class design isn't done. We are shooting for more parity. Nobody should get a raid spot because their one talent brings a huge dps (or mana or healing or health) benefit to the raid that no other spec can provide.
Well here it is straight from the Boys in Blue, so we actually got a confirmation from official source about what is going on. Hopefully it will put doomsday scenario's to rest (including catdps), and we can get back to creating ideas that might help us in the long run.
(To Mod's: Delete if you think its inappropiate)
p.s: The above blue posts are now on all the major wow sites.
Last edited by VeeV's : 08/06/08 at 5:41 AM.
Reason: Clarification
Yes, although the challenge with this is in the implementation. For independent reasons you generally want all the rogues in the same group, so providing a group buff is unlikely to work very well; and you only need one rogue to keep up a raid buff. Hence, while making us good buffers would guarantee us one slot, they need some other mechanic to get us up to the 2.5 raid slots we deserve.
A slow-stacking poison global debuff would work well to increase the desirability of multiple rogues.
For example, consider:
Acidic Poison: 30% chance to apply, Deals 40 damage and remove 25 armor on target for 10s. Stackable 50 times.
Such a poison would have a minimal impact in PvP but a full stack provides a nice raid-wise physical DPS buff. Given the low stacking nature of the debuff, it may be optimal to have 2 rogues each applying it rather than a single rogue thus providing at least an added incentive to bring a second rogue in the raid.
Snce we don't have any info right now on the poisons for WotLK, I'm quite hopeful that they will be the mechanism to add raid utility to a rogue at the cost of some personal damage.
I'm having a big problem with generating too much threat. Our guild is working through Kara and getting badges, and lately I've been finding that my threat is SOO much higher that I have to sit back and auto-attack, Feint on recharge, or even just walk away for a while. Is this normal? I live in constant fear that if my mogoose's proc at the wrong time I will insta-gib from the aggro. Forget about even using BF or AR, unless I've already pre-vanished to dump threat. This can be pretty annoying since we are all watching the damage charts and I know I can do a lot better but I spend too much time sitting on the sidelines because my damage seems to outpace our tanks significantly...
I'm having a big problem with generating too much threat. Our guild is working through Kara and getting badges, and lately I've been finding that my threat is SOO much higher that I have to sit back and auto-attack, Feint on recharge, or even just walk away for a while. Is this normal? I live in constant fear that if my mogoose's proc at the wrong time I will insta-gib from the aggro. Forget about even using BF or AR, unless I've already pre-vanished to dump threat. This can be pretty annoying since we are all watching the damage charts and I know I can do a lot better but I spend too much time sitting on the sidelines because my damage seems to outpace our tanks significantly...
No, it is not. Well, in 5 mans it can be an annoyance, but nothing unmanageable. Even without Salvation, threat shouldn't be an issue.
There are three options:
1) Your tank is bad.
2) You outgear the tank.
3) Both.
Other than that, never use Feint (or at least you shouldn't have to). Use your vanish wisely.
He's wrong about never using feint. There's just times it's appropriate, search the rogue threads on these boards for more in depth analysis.
Right, perhaps "never" was too much. If your vanish is down and you are threat capped, I guess you should use Feint. The situations where that happens are very rare, though. I can only think of one fight in the game where I would actually use Feint.
It depends on your tank. If your tank is good, you shouldn't need to feint; but not all tanks are created equal. And if your tank doesn't have the aggro to more or less let you go all out the entire fight, the optimal way to manage this is to use feint for the first little bit of the fight, and then vanish and go all out thereafter - timing the first vanish so that you don't catch up again until the second vanish and/or end of the fight.
But the fundamental answer here - that your tank either has bad aggro or you badly outgear him - is a pretty fair assessment of the situation. At equal gear, a good tank should be able to stay head of you on aggro.
He's wrong about never using feint. There's just times it's appropriate, search the rogue threads on these boards for more in depth analysis.
It looks like you have a decent mix for Karazan, and your spec is spot on for what I'd expect. Looks like you have read up some on your end.
I'm interested to know if you experience this "threat cap" on mostly trash, only trash or both trash and bosses?
You may want to read the Protection Warrior forums and/or point your tank in that direction. Knowledge is power.
Originally Posted by EJ Moderator
You have received an infraction at Elitist Jerks.
Reason: Useless Post
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I'm not going to say he didn't deserve that, but it doesn't make your post any less useless.
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No, it is not. Well, in 5 mans it can be an annoyance, but nothing unmanageable. Even without Salvation, threat shouldn't be an issue.
There are three options:
1) Your tank is bad.
2) You outgear the tank.
3) Both.
Other than that, never use Feint (or at least you shouldn't have to). Use your vanish wisely.
You missed a rather interesting option:
4) Your tank outgears the instance
You won't see this happen too often, but it does happen at times that tanks are too strong on some avoidance stats to efficiently generate rage, and because of that have trouble generating or maintaining agro.
Snce we don't have any info right now on the poisons for WotLK, I'm quite hopeful that they will be the mechanism to add raid utility to a rogue at the cost of some personal damage.
The one thing that looks good are the high end assassination talents, particularly Deadly Brew (2 points, 50/100% chance to apply an extra poison).
Combine Deadly Brew, Infectious Poisons (for the 20% bonus dmg), master poisoner and Vile poisons, dual wield instant (which will 100% proc Deadly for every instant proc) and you have a pretty large chunk of damage right there. I assume Master Poisoners "reduces poisons duration" increases the damage at the same time so a full stack of deadly will deliver more in less time? If that is correct, you could combine Cut to the Chase (although it looks a bit meh imo) with Envenom finishers and drop SnD from the rotation altogether... = \
which would have a more standard requirement to SnD finish/rupture/then perhaps envenom if you have points over.
I guess if there are any poisons on the horizon something will be added to the talent spec to cover them as well but atm the talents only seem to cover the standard from pre TBC (ie. instant/deadly/mind numb/wounding, no anesthetic).
You missed a rather interesting option:
4) Your tank outgears the instance
You won't see this happen too often, but it does happen at times that tanks are too strong on some avoidance stats to efficiently generate rage, and because of that have trouble generating or maintaining agro.
A good tank in this situation would swap out some tanking gear for DPS gear, thus making this a peculiar subset of (1) imo
Originally Posted by Azsh
I assume Master Poisoners "reduces poisons duration" increases the damage at the same time so a full stack of deadly will deliver more in less time? If that is correct, you could combine Cut to the Chase (although it looks a bit meh imo) with Envenom finishers and drop SnD from the rotation altogether... = \
I'm pretty sure it reduces poison duration on *you*, not your target. It's basically a PvP talent.
08/05/08, 3:59 PM
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