VeeV's

The "Best Single Target DPS" concept and the original class description has gone to hell, at the moment they came out with the Arenas.

The problem of how to change a game that was developed towards PvE before release, and had 24 months of balancing done to the same direction is no small task. (if possibile at all)
They cant give us more damage as it hurts Arenas and the "balance" there, and like it or not Arenas and "E-Sport" is the buzzword at Blizzard atm. Until they implement different rule sets for PVE and PVP targets dont expect our class to perform how is it written in the class description.

With that in mind we shouldnt expect a return to the Pre Haste Nerf state which was arguably the closest (or a somewhat overboard)to what a pure dps class should be. The Rogue is the only Pure Dps class in the game with no other output in a raid just damage and nothing else.

We cant expect 10-15% damage lead on every class as Arena balance would suffer, we cant expect raidbuffs as it would go against the whole concept of The Rogue, and the current normalization trend.

With the removal of Blessing of Salvation however we have an opportunity that would benefit PvE and leave PvP totally uninfluenced.

They could come up with an ability for us that is a AoE threat reduction on friendly targets. What it could do is that in 10-15yard range from the rogue all friendly targets loose X amount of threat upon activation for X seconds. 2-3 rogues in raid could effectively manage a 25-mans threat, thus providing utility and an ability that would make Raidleaders want rogues in their raid.

 

sp00n

The thing is, there *are* already different mechanics in PvE and PvP, glancing blows and resilience comes to mind.
And if they already went that way, why not make use of its full potential and think of something that helps in PvE but is useless in PvP? Removing glancing blows for rogues is an often and very easy to implement method for example, I bet one could think of many more other.

 

VeeV's

Why stop there? They could simply go and for example say Hemo does 100% of its damage on PVE targets, but only 75% (or any number) on PvP tragets compared to the PvE damage. It would make balancing a lot easier and wouldnt result in blanket nerfs.

 

Aéquitas

How about having feint reducing threat for your whole party? With about 2-3 pure dps groups it could be a great way to get us our 2,5 raidspot for sure. It would not be that you cannot live without a rogue though taking one would improve your raids dps and maybe even survivability when you play with overaggroing tards.

 

Greymist1

As it stands, right now, with the current ruleset, rogue damage output in Arenas doesn't even touch what they can do in PvE. It is not only possible for Blizzard to accomplish what you think is impossible (to allow high PvE dps without affecting arena class balance), they've already done it.

Think about it. What things do rogues require for competitive PvE DPS right now? Near-perfect group and raid buffs. Well-itemized DPS gear which focuses on stats like hit, expertise, and agility. 41 points into combat. A chance to run a good cycle which keeps S&D up while maximizing use of high efficiency finishers. Rogues in competitive arena play rarely have more than two or three of the valued buffs, can't afford to wear very much DPS-itemized gear because of survivability issues, seldom spec deep combat (or even mutilate) because of the horrible mobility problems any non-shadowstep build faces, and have no shot at running decent cycles (it's nigh impossible to even keep S&D up all the time). The inevitable result: rogue DPS drops like a rock in arenas.

My best Brutallus to date was about 2350 DPS, yet I'm lucky to break 400 in an arena match, even while wearing some PvE gear. I'm getting kited and CCed in Arenas, which brings my average down, but the point is, it's not even in the same ballpark as what I can do in PvE.

 

VeeV's

Youre right to a certain degree, however we shouldnt forget that there is no tank n spank in arenas. (such as Brutallus) So comparing thoose numbers to arena is quite unfortunate. Arenas are all about controlled and well timed bursts that take the focus target down. If we as rogues are able to output too much damage our bursts will be too much too, as illustrated in the ill fated HARP spec and the recent "tuning" of Hemo.

The area where out pve damage can be improved while leaving pvp untouched is very limited. Its either mob specific attributes like glancing blows, or no damage talents like the proposed 10 yard AoE Feint for agg reducrion on friendlies.

If they touch our damage output upwards there will be crying as there was oh so many times in BC.

 

Krollin

Some people have already touched on providing poisons in addition to the ones already available.

Poisons have a problem, albeit a minor one. The damage caused by DPS poisons does not scale, the only scaling comes when Envenom is used.
Now I don't have a problem with this at all, I don't really see how Blizzard could introduce scaling poison damage in a "realistic" way considering how little poisons have changed since the game started apart from charges and stacks.

What I would like to see is poisons being used as a way to give us a Raid buff or buffs in the form of poisons whose effect scales with the number of charges stacked on the target. The only problem here would be prevent multiple stacks of the same poison being maintained on the target but that was a technical issue that Blizzard removed in a previous patch.

Even simple things like "Increases all damage by 5/10/15/20/25 per hit and each hit has a 10% chance to reduce the stack size by 1. Stacks to a maximum of 5" would give us a reason to be included other than our "DPS is pretty good".
This poison's utility would be improved by having multiple rogues all refreshing the same stack perhaps.

Hopefully there is a Blizzard dev somewhere burning the midnight oil working on fiendish new poison recipes for us and creating a greater range of "utility" poisons beyond those we already have.

 

sp00n

Expressing it differently, you can hardly increase the 'lolz big numbaz' without an outcry of nerf please, but rather focus on the steady damage, like white hits, DoTs and poisons, as you have pointed out, most Arena matches are decided by damage bursts (and good control).

This has been the rogue's strength in PvE anyway, a steady output of damage.

 

Ozzmar

I toyed around with a spec like this on the LK calculator, but it's somewhat discouraging how much filler you have to take in Combat just to get down to Combat Potency. The entire first tier is useless, and Aggression is no help at all. Not only that, but Surprise Attacks doesn't apply to Hemo, so you're spending 40 points in a tree to get undodgeable finishers. It strikes me as a more logical choice to simply rely on expertise and take the DPS hit if a finisher doesn't land.

Assuming Hemo becomes useful as a raid utility talent in LK (which it very well may not), it'd probably make sense to start with a baseline talent build of Relentless/Weapon Expertise/Deadliness (11/27/30) and use the remaining 3 points wherever your little heart desires.

 

sp00n

It seems we may get 3.0 sooner than expected. At least on the PTR:

 

Pharmacon

That's a quote by Tigole fyi.

Basically, to me, this means they plan on having 3.0 on the PTR for a very long time. Maybe even enough that they put in some of the class iterations they are still working on.

 

tetracycloide

Actually it does. If a raid already has a debuff/buff and they do not stack the value of that utility is exactly zero. On a guild roster this might not be the case, since you want redundancy to account for less than perfect attendance or network problems, but in any given raid the utility of stacking unstackable buffs/debuffs is exactly zero. The problem presently isn't that the conclusion doesn't follow it's that Blizzard's implimentation of unstackable buffs/debuffs doesn't match what they are saying their ultimate goal is for raiding. At least it does not match yet.

My vanity is justified.

 

Left

While I agree with you that poison providing a DPS-boost debuff would be a great way to introduce utility, I disagree that there isn't any reason or way to have poisons scale. Current implementations of paladin seals on the beta include both an AP and a Spellpower scaling coefficient (albeit a low one). I see no reason why this could not apply to poisons. For example, if Deadly Poison did 180 + 0.02AP damage over 12 seconds, that would yield 60 additional damage over 12 seconds (or 5 DPS) per stack at a raiding level of 3000 AP.

Such a scaling would have little impact on PvP, because (a) there isn't all that much AP on PvP gear, and (b) in PvP, you are much more likely to be using utility poisons anyway.

At the same time, I see no reason that debuffs couldn't be worked into existing poisons via talents. For example, what if Master Poisoner caused your poisons to also increase Nature damage done to the target by 2/4%? That would be a decent boost to the other DPS support classes (Shamans, Balance Druids) as well as increasing the poison damage component of all rogues in the raid. Or have wound poison perform the same debuff that Blood Frenzy currently does, allowing you to either take an Arms warrior or an Assassination rogue?

The point is, there are options, either with poison scaling, working debuffs into existing poisons, or new poisons entirely.

This is a bit of an oversimplication. With some abilities, this is true. For example, dropping two agility totems is of no benefit over dropping one. However, for non-stacking abilities which rely on chance and therefore have an estimated uptime, there is actually some utility to having more than one class (or raid member) able to apply the effect. For example, Unleashed Rage relies on the shaman's crits. If the shaman gets an unlucky crit streak, the buff drops. Having a second shaman greatly decreases the chances of this. Thus, the marginal utility of the second shaman is not zero. Small, yes, but still non-zero.

In some cases the marginal utility of a second buff of the same type is important enough to pursure directly. For example, on RoS phase 2 we run all our rogues with Mind Numbing poison and often have a Warlock applying Curse of Tongues as well. Obviously, we aren't slowing the casts down any more than the base 60%, but what we ARE doing is making triple sure that we always have the slowing effect up.

Thus, while you have a valid point, it is not a universal one.

 

tetracycloide

That's what I meant when I said Blizzard's current implementation in beta doesn't match the goal. It certainly does not match it on live.

My vanity is justified.

 

Krollin

Good points there, especially about a possible way to introduce other (de)buff possibilities for Rogues.

AP scaling for Deadly Poison sounds reasonable, perhaps the chance that Instant Poison doing critical damage inline with Spell Critical damage rather than Melee Critical would be equally reasonable.

My only concern would be that Deadly Brew would be considered overkill and from the new Talents I have seen in the Assassination tree that is one of the ones I would least like to see being pulled or changed. That was part of the reason behind me saying Blizzard would have a hard time changing poison scaling. Being rushed for time when I posted that is no excuse for not being clearer however.

 

Stylle

Anyone who has done fights like Kalecgos, Azgalor, Gorefiend etc. should be able to see that this is not true. Raid members die. Sometimes they have to move out of range of the rest of the riad. In short, shit happens. The marginal utility of redundant buffs is never zero.

 

tetracycloide

Which is why bleeding edge progression kills often feature multipul enhancement shaman, multipul affliction locks, multipul survival hunters, ect. Sure the marginal utility is never exactly zero (my mistake for saying exactly zero) because that's just the nature of risk but when it is so close to zero that everyone treats it as zero it might as well be. This is a distinction without difference.

My vanity is justified.

 

Stylle

Enhancement shaman yes. The rest no.

P.s.
'multipul' is not a word.

Edit:
The benefits of stacking redundant buffs go up, and the costs go down when said buffs are raid wide.

 

tetracycloide

This is an apples to oranges comparison. On live two enhancement shaman are used only to buff two different groups. So this point would only be valid if two enhancement shaman were being used to buff the same group.

In WotLK raid wide buffs will reduce, not increase, the benefits of stacking buffs because they are no longer party only buffs. If you can point out one raid wide buff/debuff that bleeding edge progression kills bring more than one of or one party buff/debuff that bleeding edge progression kills bring more than one of when the buff/debuff doesn't stack raid or party wise respectively then you'll have made your point.

P.S.
I fail to see what my poor spelling has to do with the validity of my point. Address my arguments directly or not at all.

My vanity is justified.

 

Arindelest

Tertacycloide is basically correct, but the utility of redundant buffs/debuffs CAN be zero.

As more and more classes gain more and more buff/debuff redundancy, the value of redundant buffs/debuffs drops and drops and drops until, eventually, you have 25 people all with exactly the same buffs and the value of redundant buffs/debuffs is 0.

 

Mideci

Well, bleeding edge guilds don't bring multiple affliction locks or survival hunters ever, despite the utility of said debuffs, tetra, so on some level you contradict your own point. The buff is hugely valuable and it's not stacked despite being raid-wide. For all of you claiming rogues shouldn't get one of these "redundant" buffs because of some "it goes against the nature of the class argument" or some other illogic, I'm a bit lost.

If every other class has one or more of them and rogues do not and to further complicate matters, rogue dps cannot -- by your own statements -- have any meaningful increment to other classes, and rogue dps will also be mitigated on movement fights, what is the raison d'etre for rogues?

This isn't an "oh my god, rogues are obsolete" crying post, it's a legitimate question...

* 9 classes buff, not rogues
* Warlocks, hunters, mages can approximate rogue damage and can do so without moving
* Rogues stand in the middle of melee range and tend to be victimized by more damage than most ranged classes

All of this exists today, but until recently has been mitigated by a meaningful edge on the damage meters. And really, past behavior and the "perfect group" deal. With the addition of a new class that also does melee dps, can instantly tank a mob, debuffs targets, etc. you should really be asking what justifies having rogues in raids. As in unique benefits. Not subtle esoterica, but unique benefits.

Given the inherent melee disadvantage and the fairly unique poison application skill, I'd argue that rogues absolutely must in Lich King:

(1) Noticeably top meters on relatively stationary fights, by ~10%. Because on fights with movement, rogues simply won't. And I'm sorry, but this has no PVP implications whatsoever. Blink, hamstring, fear, slow, and countless other abilities have long prevented rogues from sitting around dpsing pvp targets. That's why rogue pvp is based so heavily on stun lock, why it frustrates other classes, and why absent gigantic changes to combo points (self buff) and finishers (making them much bigger and other attacks much smaller), it's not going to change.

(2) Have some kind of compelling raid buff that makes raid leaders absolutely convinced that 2-3 slots should be held by rogues, the very same way they'll be absolutely convinced 2-3 raid slots belong to every other class. That doesn't mean every class will have 2-3 slots in every raid. We often raid with 4 priests and 1 warrior today. We sometimes have 5 druids. We've done more than a few Hyjals without a single rogue. But if there isn't some obvious raid buff generated by rogues that -- even if more or less replacable or something you can live without -- feels compelling, then the endagered species argument will come into play. There is a lot of posting here "rogues get raid spots because they have good social skills; mages got mage spots out of pity". That's surely not what anyone is looking for.

 

Dorvan

However, redundant buffs make a huge difference when you're determining who to sub out for a given fight. If you're going to have to sub out say a shaman or a rogue and only an enhancement shaman can provide a particular buff than it's goodbye rogue....so even though the rogue's buff may be redundant when both players are in, rogues have good reason to want a share in those overlapping buffs so that sub'ing out a melee doesn't automatically mean ditching a rogue.

 

Shivawn

I guess I too am worried about the direction of the rogue. Even during the Burning Crusade, I've always wanted the rogue class to be the top dps'er without much utility, like in Molten Core/BWL/Naxx days. You top the meter as a combat build (when combat daggers was king the castle)

Now you see Destro Locks blowing you out of the water by pressing one damn button the whole time. We at least press 3. So where does that put us? I dunno, but honestly, I don't want to have to stack Illidan blades and full T6 to start to overtake other classes. I know it's possible, but I definitely want our dps to be more inline with pre-TBC days. I hope that our review brings up some interesting abilities, as we definitely are due for some PVE-related skills.

 

• Aldriana

Personally, I'm not sure where you're coming from; I saw more non-rogues atop the damage meter on Patchwerk than I ever have on Brutallus. Although I suppose that might have something to do with the fact that the guild I did Naxx with had a crazy-good Warlock in it, but still. I don't think our DPS position relative to most other classes has changed that much between TBC and WotLK - we were among the top options then, though there were a few other classes/specs that could compete; we are among the top options now, though there are a few other classes that can compete.

Now, I hear a lot of people saying that they want to be the best single-target DPS, period. And, frankly, I can see where you're coming from - being on top is fun, and I enjoy it myself. On the other hand, I think the point Dorvan makes is a good one; while rogues are an extremely powerful resource on melee friendly fights right now, we're among the first to be subbed out for less melee friendly fights. When my guild was learning PW, we brought 3 rogues, an arms warrior, a fury warrior, a ret pally, and an enhancement shaman, with two ferals tanking. When it came time to do Felmyst, we ditched... one of the feral druids, specced the arms warrior prot to tank, and dropped 2 rogues, but kept the fury warrior, the enhancement shaman, the ret pally, etc. Why? Because rogues aren't that useful without the other meleers, but the other melee do just fine without the rogues.

Hence, while there is a certain appeal to topping the meters, I think it's the least certain way to get raid spots; I'd be perfectly content to give up a little bit of DPS - leaving us in the top category but not necessarily the absolute top spot - in exchange for some utility/buffs/whatever to help assure raid spots. And I also think that this is the more likely outcome, since, lets face it, *everyone* wants to be the top DPS class; or at least, every primary DPS class does. And we can't all be the clear number 1. So the approach I expect Blizzard to take - and what they seem to be doing so far - is to have all the primary DPS classes be more or less in the same band, such that it's not always "the rogues just win on DPS", but that any class in that group can theoretically take the top spot. Which doesn't mean you still can't top the meters - it just means you'll have to be better than everyone else to do it, which seems totally reasonable to me.

 

dinesh

Not to pick on this specific poster, but this sentiment comes up repeatedly. On its surface it seems true, but it's not, really. Furthermore, whether or not it is true now does not mean it will be true come WotLK.

Off the top of my head, rogues currently bring:

* High damage
* High damage/threat (less useful now with few threat capped fights, possibly more useful in the future, particularly with Salv changing so substantially)
* CloS capabilities. (As just one example where this comes to bear: how many times have rogues caused a wipe-inducing soul shard on Archimonde? Lots fewer than other classes, because we can cloak out of Grip and Fire damage once per minute. Not to mention having more room for error with the fall damage, and being able to sprint back once we land.)
* Interruption capabilities with a top 2 lockout/cooldown ratios with (realistically) no resistance problems
* Ability to do our jobs while moving - i.e. staying out of AoE on Illidari Council
* Evasion tanking capabilities (though typically this will either be gimmicky, or an oh shit skill - just last night we did a three rogue evasion tank finale on Bloodboil which dropped him with 3 toons left alive)
* MN, Wound, and Crippling poison capability. Oh, and anesthetic (heh, at least for now).
* Complete disregard of Silence debuffs

Some of the tradeoffs:
* Increased susceptibility to melee splash damage or other splash damage effects
* Risk of occasional cleaves (while wearing leather)
* Lower utility on movement fights where DPS isn't maintained while moving
* Pitiful utility on ranged-only phases of boss fights
* We are group comp dependent buff sponges. This will mostly disappear in WotLK I believe.

I'm sure there are tons that I have missed, but the point is that we bring a lot of utility in addition to just "high dps" which is usually just ignored here, and is probably just as often ignored by raid leaders. We'd do well to be able to talk lucidly about them, even if they are hard to quantify exactly.