That all depends on how far Blizzard plans to take this raid-buff thing. For example, if *every* buff was able to be done by, say, 3 classes, you'd end up with pretty much every buff and debuff in the raid with pretty much any composition. So now you wouldn't have two warlock spots, but you'd need to have a warlock or an X or a Z to do Curse of Elements or the equivalent, and a warlock or an A or a B to do Curse of Recklessness. Obviously there will be exceptions where you need one class, but the more classes you give each buff to (and 3 seems like quite a high number) the less you depend on any one class. The logical extension to that argument is every class having every debuff/buff (which will certainly not happen, but that's what it would head towards), which would basically mean the only real separator among DPS classes would be DPS, threat management, and other things like that.

And as for Tetracycloide, while your interpretation of the second sentence could be correct (although I doubt the CMs would really want to mince words that way), it doesn't really fit with the first sentence stating that rogues "will be getting more synergy."

The full meaning of my post is, reguardless of if making no class indispensable is possible or not, Blizzard's actions and statements could be construded as meaning that having no indispensable classes is the direction in which they want to take raids in WotLK.

The long standing rogue argument has always been that they provide no raid buffs or debuffs so their DPS must be high to compensate. The assumption inherient to that argument is that other classes are invited on the baises of their raid buffs. If all raid buffs are overlapping, and they aren't at the moment but bare with me, then there is no longer a reason to bring a specific class because you can get their raid buff from two or three other classes. The result will be that between two or three players of different classes/specs you bring the best player and not the best class.

So if rogues need high DPS to compensate for a lack of raid buffs because some classes get raid slots based on the buffs/debuffs alone and the mechanics for guaranteed raid slots based on buffs/debuffs is being removed. It stands to reason that rogues no longer need superior DPS to gurantee slots because other classes will no longer be guranteed slots.

Now in current beta this doesn't stand because all raid buffs are not created equal and there are still a great number of highly useful buffs/debuffs that are indispensable. However, moving toward removing a large portion of the raid composition backbone and replacing it with modular alternatives could easily result in the same thing happening for rogue DPS.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Blizzard has very clearly indicated they want the average raid to be sporting 2-3 members of each class. In a recruting environment where every class has virtually identical total utility to a raid reguardless of the remaining composition in the raid the ideal choice is to choose the class you have the least of. Removing the advantage of class stacking for every other class works as a way to encourage rogue slots based simply on bell curve statistics and loot distributions. It wouldn't matter that their utility doesn't stand head and shoulders above everyone else because no other class' utility does either.

You are absolutely right. However, simply implementing the existing talents could be all the first sentence was aluding to because at this point in beta 3 fully operational trees would be 'new' and 'more synergy' for rogues.

I catch your meaning now. That certainly is another way to go and I'd be completely cool with that methodology as well. I remain skeptical of Blizzard's ability to pull that off, but that is entirely my problem.
:-P

I hardly think that would be overpowered. Napkin math would place the net effect of that at something on the order of ~4-4.5%. Glancing blows only affect our white damage and are, last I checked, a 25% chance for our white hits to be reduced by 25% of their total damage. Effecting that change right now would still not get top rogues close to the top legendary wielding hunters, as an aside.

This is fair to say, and I for one sure hope it ends up being true, but only time will tell. With the talent Honor Amongst Theives (which is great, just in a horrible place), it would be nice to see deep Sub gain a piece of utility that, as previously mentioned, would compensate for their lower DPS output but not be a lynchpin for the raid.

Tetracycloide, your comments are well spoken and make a lot of sense to me. This entire discussion is obviously very speculative, but to echo Gwystyl's comments I'm not sure if Blizzard's supposed goal of homogenizing class buffs/utility/raid role is even achieveable (at least not in the timeframe that's been stated for expansion release.)

What I'm interested in is ... do rogues really *want* more utility in raids? I'm not in a hurry to have to manage buffs, do something else in combat that's going to take me off my target for any length of time, or babysit another class who's going to do more damage than me as a result. Silly lore reasoning aside, I think from a design standpoint having one or two classes that focus completely on damage and save the utility/tricks for PVP or other aspects of the game is a good thing. It appeals to more playstyles than a generic scenario where every class has X ability to do damage, Y ability to buff other players, and Z ability to defend itself. I knew when I rolled a rogue that I'd have limited abilities to help other people and limited defenses, with the tradeoff being "mad dps." I was comfortable with that role on day 1, and I still am.

In my opinion, the easiest way to do this would be to create a new ability for it. Something along the lines of...

Contusion
50 Energy, 5 yd. range
Instant, 30 second CD
Delivers a blow to the head of a sapped target, refreshing the duration of sap. May only be used on a sapped target.

This avoids issues with mob agro and pack splitting, as the mob is put into combat as per normal. It avoids issues with chain-sapping out of combat in PvP, as PvP sap lasts only 12 seconds and this ability would have a cooldown exceeding that. (Ok, so it would allow a single Sap->Resap combo, but not more than one.) It allows chain sapping in PvE by virtue of being able to refresh the duration of sap, but it comes with a significant energy cost. In addition, if you screw up and let the sap break, then you are out of luck.

Basically, that would give us a PvE crowd control more or less on par with sheeping, trapping, etc, but with our own unique mechanic for how to make it work. (Mages have to resheep, Warlocks have to banish right away when banish comes off, hunters have to feign and retrap, rogues have to be careful to not let sap drop...)

In terms of implementation, that should be simple. There are already multiple LK talents which have one ability refresh the duration of another; this is a simple application of that same concept but with a dedicated ability.

In all honesty, with them trying to put redundancy in the key raid buffs, and with the caveat that this is not informed opinion but merely speculation - I wouldn't be surprised if we see other "important" buffs fit into our trees. Expose Weakness seems like a good canidate for a buff that hasn't been made redundant and meshes well with roguey-ness.

Look at the mage design tree though - they provide some VERY solid debuffs (+10% dmg, +10% crit) for other users of those damage types - I think others are correct in saying that it's likely that our DPS will be toned down slightly, but rogues will be given some solid raid/group utility to make up for it.

What it comes down to is a matter of choice. If you wanted to do "mad dps", you still can with the spec that does the most dps. However, if you do choose to manage buffs/debuffs, you can spec into that too and still be raid viable. Having utility doesn't have to come at the exclusion of high dps. Just look at BM and Survival hunters right now. BM hunters perform "mad dps", even higher than that of rogues in a classic tank and spank fight, and they even provide a group buff to boot. Also, if one wanted to provide debuffs (ie. EW and IHM), they can spec into Survival and lose some personal dps.

Right now, as it stands, it's deep combat or bust for raiding, deep sub for PVP, with deep assassination completely useless for anything. It seems like a waste of a tree to me.

I beg to differ! Mutilate is a very fun and interactive spec, and I'll have you know, using it I top my guild's dps meters regularly, even against some other "not so dedicated" Combat Swords rogues. Saying one entire tree is "crap" cause you dislike it is just wrong and counterproductive. The fact may stand that Mutilate will be outdpsed by a Combat swords build on equal grounds, but in my opinion it VASTLY makes up for that minor dps difference in the sheer enjoyment of playing a non-spam spec.

Also, Mutilate as it stands now in the unfinished talent trees is getting much more love then combat, and I for one hope blizzard continues the trend, after all, this is supposed to be a "dagger comeback" expansion.

I think the age of "Rogue is the highest single target dps" is a thing of the past. To be realistic we were for a long time. Windfury made us king with haste being amazing for our dps with trinkets and procs with no internal cooldown. When they changed haste and nerfed haste procs (Warglaive, DST, Blacksmith hammer) they knocked us down quiet a few pegs.

A few things changed between Karazhan and T5.

AOE became more prevalent.
Group synergy became the center point of group design.
No longer was it how much damage could you do but how much could you do and what do you give others.
They nerfed the hell out of haste, windfury, sword procs. (even expertise i think)
They let percentage based buffs that were "ok" on lower content go unfixed for to long. Before you knew it they started designing content around guilds advantaging off of them.


Elemental Shaman, MS warriors, Ret pallies, Boomkins. Specs that brought a lot to the raid but were always left out due to their personal performance got boosted like no other.

The problems i'm trying to highlight is that we lost a lot but other classes which weren't far behind us in performance and had buffs to offer didn't get knocked down at all. This is why you seen Hunters Top damage along side the Warlocks.

They've clearly stated that they are getting rid of the "no buff big damage, got buffs poor damage" design and giving everyone something they can give to the raid. They're trying to jigsaw the buffs and have mutiple classes give buffs from multiple other classes. This will allow raid design to be a lot more flexible.

As for what the rogue will get. Well, I think anyone's guess is as good as the next. Perhaps that's why we're last. How do you give a raid buff to the "assassin" class without it making no sense. Rogue's aren't spell casters. We don't roar. If I had to put my money on it I'd guess it to be something involving our poisons. They'll probably put some sort of bleed damage, nature, maybe armor reducing debuff in. I'm hoping for some way to boost caster damage as well to justify a rogue spot in a caster heavy raid group.