Lord Xar

You have some valid points, but don't other classes build combo points on themselves? But getting back to your scenario, what does it matter where the combo points go? A combo point is a combo point is a combo point. If you are building combo points on one mob and apply it to another, what is the issue? If you use "those" combo points on MOB B, then MOB A didn't receive them. Its just a transfer of energy. If you want to shadowstep and kidney a mage for 5 combo's that is fine, because you didn't use those 5 pts on your other adversary. You should only be able to build combo points on 'enemies', So this idea of going around hitting critters wouldn't matter.

I understand your concern, but I think it would be a huge justice to rogues to be able to control their own usage of combo points, and would just mirror the adaptability that rogues are suppose to have.

 

CaptG1066

I think this nicely sums up where all of the new rogue abilities (and rogues in general) are at. Useful in enough situations that you sorely miss them when you don't have them, but with a high enough opportunity cost to make having them a tough choice.

Now that there is no one true way for rogues in terms of PVE DPS, we really have to evaluate the different talent trees for the utility they can bring to a group. With viable crowd control, highly versatile threat manipulation, and multiple interrupts/silences, being on par with other DPS classes is acceptable to me.

If anything needs changing right now, it's the perception of rogues as one-dimensional DPS bots.

 

• Vulajin

You've clearly stumbled upon Aldriana's master plan to distract all rogues away from the doom and gloom that is the rogue condition. Woe are we.

At this point you're basically arguing semantics, which leads me to question what your real concern is. Our 51-point talents being bad (which is entirely a matter of opinion, and you don't seem to have encountered any restrictions in stating your opinion on it) doesn't have any bearing on the state of rogues, which, as I recall, involved people complaining that we are not doing enough DPS. Now, perhaps you are suggesting that our 51-point talents being bad is related because those talents should instead be magical cure-alls that bring us from where we currently are (which is alleged to be a sub-par position) up to where we should be (purportedly the top of the meters, always).

I don't see how Ghostcrawler's quote is the least bit inconsistent about that. They don't want 51-point talents to be so absolutely essential that any build without a 51-point talent is worthless. If the entirety of a rogue's alleged PvE DPS deficit were made up by a change to Hunger for Blood, then any build without Hunger for Blood would be effectively worthless. That's fine and great, but it kills variety for people who don't happen to be, you know, us. People like the millions of others who play this game who have never heard of ElitistJerks.com and certainly don't give a fuck that rogues in the top 1% of guilds aren't dealing as much damage as other classes.

What are you talking about?

 

Lord Xar

Being essential is just a matter of perception, isn't it? No talent or skill could be construed by your definition as essential if one can't commit to the thing in question holding value. It is the value we ascribe to it that matters. The topic of the 51pt talent came up because it was brought up, nobody is suggesting that it should be the panacea we are all hoping for. We both have different opinions on where we feel a 51pt talent should be. The assumption is when you climb up the ladder, you are higher. Low hanging fruit is easily achieved and shared by many, thus common. The more rare an item is, the more valuable iti s. That would make most sense to me. I believe the trees themselves should be strong, thus perhaps your assumption would make more sense. With our trees lackluster, yes my opinion, then the weight of the 51pt talents are considered to make up the shortfall, and also - as stated above, it was brought up so I commented on tier 11 talents.

Ok, lets take your example and expand it. Lets say a player was to opt out of taking a 51pt talent. Where can that rogue put that 1pt to make up the difference? In other words, if they are gonna remove their 51pt ability and opt for a lesser tier in another tree, what would constitute a fair exchange so thsee 'said' rogues wouldn't be worthless? Also, lets take another vantage point and suggest that a rogue would opt out because the talent itself is weak. Also, why is feasible to opt out of a tier 11 talent, but not tier 10? or Tier 9? Like you said you could, but you'd gimp yourself.

Anyways, we disagree on some points. One also should consider that much of these dicussions would be moot if infact, the trees were not broken to some degree.

 

• Aldriana

The intention of the thread is to discuss what people see as the issues. It's just that different people have different opinions. Some people are unhappy with KSp, and they're more than welcome to say so; it's just that some of us are not unhappy with it, and we're allowed to say so too.

 

Tinwhisker

I was intrigued by this and decided to go back over my own guilds raids over the last couple weeks. I only topped the meters in one fight (our most recent Thaddius so it hardly counts for anything) but when showing "all bosses" for each night I'm #2 behind a hunter (or mage, or whatever).

It feels odd because I was never higher than #3 in any fight besides that one but taken over 15 bosses I did very well. I'm a bit disheartened that our TG Warrior has been on vacation the last two weeks because being a dual wielding melee class I'd like to see what his totals look like compared to mine.

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

 

Shivawn

I think many of the people commenting are more or less looking at Titan's Grip. It's the single most powerful talent, possibly in the game at the moment. It's one point, and it nearly changes the entire setup of a warrior. You've gone from wielding 150dps weapons to 200dps weapons without any sort of negative effect (as of patch).

We're looking at that 51pt talent and going 'Why don't we have a single talent point that increases our dps by 30-some percent? Are we not the same, a pure melee dps class?' More or less, we're valuing one another against another class that is similar to us, and wondering why we aren't getting similar talent points. Many of our talents don't match with theirs, so it does become a wonder why we are not matching ourselves with simply ourselves, understanding what some complications are and theorize how to fix it.

As I have commented previously, perhaps something with glancing blows, something that only rogues can do would trim this deficit between warriors/rogues/hunters/mages. It could be a 'rogue only' thing that would easily tweak us towards a specific dps number, and throttle it back if it proves to be too effective.

Honestly, though, I'm still adamant that rogues should be ahead by 5%, as in, ahead of ALL classes. We have the toughest job in terms of survivability in most fights, along with a major gear and weapon dependency now. Maybe in T8, that dependency will swing our way and 'fix' us.

TL;DR: idk my bff warriors :<

 

meneldor

throwing myself into this...
I have to say I love the playstyle of the new rogue... Killing spree is awsome when doing bosses with lots of adds esp in combination with bladeflurry... Killing spree and then Fan of Knives fills my screen with lots and lots of numbers and my heart with joy!
I guess it is a matter of opinion but personally I think it is a great fun 51th point talent.
The really "Meaty" talents are ofc "Prey on the weak" and "savage Combat" just below the "crown" of the tree...
Tricks of the trade is also very usefull and fun in raids... I can help out the tank picking up adds on again bosses with lots of adds (and there are quite a few). It also helps in heroics. I guess it would have been much more powerful if the old threatsystem was still in use.
I think blizzard have done a great job on making the rogue more fun. Can more be done? Of Course!

On the topic of us having no buff at least combat has the savage combat that does +2% physical damage debuff? (the Master Poisoner +crit% I do not count) It is no BoM but it actually does contribute an not insignificant amount to RAID damage (similar to the Blood Frenzy from arms warriors).
All in all I love playing my combat spec rogue. However I do agree that we have e fallen way down on dps compared to similarily geared DeathKnights, Warriors and what nots. This I think needs to be fixed! However I would not mind us having a unique raidbuff... would make me feel like i bring some more to the party so to say...
To be honest that is what I think this discussion is all about... we all feel frustrated... because at the moment we feel that we cannot contribute as much as other classes and that makes us feel less proud about ourselves... but don't take out the frustration on others rather try to be contructive!
Rogues are not broken or in a bad shape but I think we NEED a bit of a boost in dps (and hence our selfestem)

 

winst

Woah there. You made a good point about Titan's, and one I'm sure most of the rogue community would agree with (yes I think killing spree is lacklustre mainly due to tail whips and such), but there is no reason at all for us to be 5% ahead of EVERYONE. We aren't the only 'pure' dps class, and we if anything i'd say we have the easiest time out of most of the dps classes now, particularly melee with our high(er) dodge rate, evasion, cloak, sprint, feint (soon) and the most reliable aggro reset ingame.

I'd say maybe we should be close to 5% ahead of warriors (somewhere around 3%) due to their buffing nature and ability to respec back and forwards to amazing tank and amazing dps/buffbot, but really it should be a fight by fight check with locks, mages and hunters.

Just as an aside, how much in raw dps on say a 3 minute patchwerk will a dps warrior gain post-patch ?

 

Rilias

I think the situation would be more realistic if you consider a roque who somehow decides that for example mutilate may be great but thats as far as he wants to go in the assasination tree. What cost would one associate with this decision? Should the entire spec not work because assasination as a playstyle simply requires HfB?

There are such key talents that an entire playstyle depends on, but in my world not every 51pt talent has to work like this. They should be a better choice than putting your point in one of the other trees, if you already are that far down anyways. Conversely it would be bad design if the 11Tier alone would warrant speccing 5 fillerpoints just to reach it.

From this angle I see our ultimates as pretty well done while other classes might have some overshooters we should by no means use as baseline.

 

Shivawn

This will not happen, ever. Not because rogues shouldn't give buffs/debuffs, but because Blizzard has more or less stated that NO class will have a debuff/buff that another class cannot provide (there are some minor exceptions, but no one has a buff that is unique to that class alone)

Sorry, you're right, I did get a bit over-zealous in ranting. I'm still clinging to the idea of a Classic WoW rogue, basically untouchable as long as you play right. I think I still miss that, just because it was so fun to fight it out with 4-6 other rogues to top spot.

I do think rogues should still have the ABILITY to beat everyone, should they play perfectly, in a perfect world, with perfect gear. But I would be more than happy to simply match with everyone in this magical, perfect world. As is, I feel like a Hunter in Classic WoW or a Ret Paladin in TBC (up until T6...), we're beaten, starved, and locked up. Blizzard just needs to let us out a bit more and murder some people. =P

I think we're extremely -close- to where we should bit, but I do understand how one can look at a warrior's talent tree, and go 'Why can't we have that?'

Personally, I'm actually more pissed off rogues didn't get Mirror Image! (I might have to roll a mage...)

 

meneldor

Lol I did not mean "Unique" quite that literal I just meant not something that adds AP to people around you or extra +crit on the boss etc but rather something more inventive but ofc not irreplaceable.
I have seen some nice ideas in this thread and I hope Blizzard gets "inspired" if they ever roam these forums.
We have expose armor but that is a pain to keep up since we loose dps but not that many others apart from warriors can reduce armor? Maybe a talent called "Kink in the armor" that reduced armour on the mob (even more than a Sunder)? Would help mostly on bosses and that used to be were we shone....

 

mprsx

I see us not having "strong" 51 point talents as an advantage to be honest... if not in PvE then PvP.

Titan's grip is like mutilate. You can't play the spec without it. But thankfully, we can play our spec without hunger for blood. If titan's grip was good in pvp for some reason, they would have to go deep down and use another 10 points in that spec.

Its just more versatility.

 

candal

The problem is, this thread is talking about rogue performance issues in PvE not PvP ..
There are quite many people who actually would like to see talents/skills that work only in (raid)instances, so that PvP fixes wouldn't nerf PvE too much ..

 

gankk

i personally believe that the state of rogues right now is PANIC...

we are so used to being at the top of the meter that we cannot handle our innability to be there at the moment. we still belive that our one and only raid utility is that we do significantly more dps then all the other classes, we cannot keep allowing ourselves to look at WoW from a TBC, or even vanilla wow standpoint being that blizzard completely revamped and changed the way the game is played...

im not saying that i believe that blizzard really made this concept easy for rogues to accept, being that we got 2 ranks of feint and TotT (which lets be honest, is almost as useless as feint) on our journey to level 80 while other classes got new and fun toys to play with, while we seemingly have the same play mechanics as we did when wow was released.

perhaps rogues do need some slight fixes but i think more importantly we just need to adjust to the way WoW is now.

 

• Latito

I've been reading this thread for a while and I guess I'll finally weigh in...

Assassination/Mutilate:
Definitely not too difficult to play, I enjoy that it definitively separates the excellent rogue from the average rogue. While even an average rogue should be able to play Mutilate well enough on Patchwerk, dancing around on Sarth + 3 drakes while maintaining a proper cycle and taking advantage of buff uptimes, etc is more than trivial. I feel that this spec is certainly the spec which is closest to where rogues "should" be in a raid. That said, I wouldn't ever consider Master Poisoner to be a raid buff in a 25-man. 10-man, sure.. but any decent guild will have an Ele Sham and/or Ret pally (who don't give up anything to put up the debuff) for 25s. Murder also concerns me as I think that our damage either needs to be balanced around having it (we suffer in like 14 out of 17 of the current boss fights) or balanced around us not having it (we become OP in fights where it counts). I'll let someone else write out a specific suggestion - but it seems like this would be an easy place to even out our damage in PvE (read: make it easier to balance us vs other dps) and decrease our PvP damage (for Assasination builds) all at the same time.

Combat:
There has been a lot of talk about KSp. In the fights where its usable, its a reasonable amount of damage for a single talent point. Its not as good as some of the talents other classes get (TG being just one) but is certainly in line with other classes 51's and just a general "1 talent = X dmg". My beef with KSp is implementation. Being teleported to a position away from your current target on the final hop, sometimes by quite a distance, is just beyond annoying - it completely offsets the damage you gained from using the ability. Combine that with the other case where you teleport to the center of the boss when only a single target is in range.. and it just feels like you can't win. For those commenting on the talent who have not raided as Combat, please at least try it. If the ability had 2 checks put in, I'd be more than thrilled:
1 - Guaranteed to end up at your original spot (unless the target is dead?)
2 - If no other targets are viable, you do NOT move.

There are (many) situations where we want to be positioned somewhere other than directly behind the center of our target. Tail Swipes are a large part of this (Sapph, Sarth, etc). Even on Patchwerk, I KSp'd and my next couple of Sinister Strikes were PARRIED. I hit S to backup a bit and didn't see another parry the entire fight. Note that I did not turn around, somehow Blizz managed to teleport me from my position just behind Patch to his center - still able to melee while facing the same direction as he, but also able to parry. If we're not going to teleport to another mob, we shouldn't be moving around at all. It would make using KSp on Sarth + 3 drakes a lot safer (KSp into a void zone anyone?) and just generally make more sense (imo).

Poisons:
I don't think there is a rogue out there (who knows what he's talking about) who won't agree that first, a utility poison (Wound) shouldn't out-dps a damage poison (instant) at literally all levels of gear, in all situations, with no drawbacks. Second, the whole "static amount of damage at a static proc rate" business didn't matter pre-Wrath, but it sure does now. Re-balancing poison damage obviously would take some effort to ensure that we aren't nerfed or buffed in any significant way, but it really is something that needs to be done (imo). All of the instant-damage poisons (Wound/Instant) can just deal an amount of damage based on your weapon speed if an auto attack proc'd them, or based on your normalized damage if a special proc'd it - essentially making poisons a static boost to our weapon dmg and AP contribution. Further, I'd like to see Deadly Poison buffed slightly. The fact that we're already nearing a point where DP is out scaled by IP/Wound is a bit nerve-wracking. I mean, damage is damage and perhaps we're better off scaling more, but at the same time has it not been pointed out a lot that we already scale better than most other classes (if not the best)? Buff DP (which essentially only scales with AP) and we get the slight dps boost that (I feel) rogues need right now, without making us scale anymore (in fact, scale less). Also of note, DP is rarely or never used in PvP (perhaps a multi-rogue team). Look at the DP dmg contribution for a Combat rogue (ie no Envenoms) and compare that to something like the Flametongue damage done by an Enhancement Shaman. I would think those two mechanics are close enough (constant damage bonus to offhand attack - roughly)


Comparison to other classes:
Here's where things get sensitive. We can all link 1-2 WWS's that show class X at the top or bottom of the meter. If you look at a range of parses (fast kills, average kills, long kills) on an array of bosses (Patch, Grob, Maexx, Heigan, Noth, etc) which favor a variety of classes, a few things pop out at me. Note, this is for 25-man content and looking at enough parses to see past 1-2 really lucky fights for a certain person as well as guilds with several good players and simultaneously several bad players. First, you'll note that aside from HAT-spec, there are a VERY, VERY limited number of Patchwerk rogue parses over 5k. I think the highest I saw was from Wodah who got like, 5012 or something with a higher-than-expected crit rate (although that would perhaps balance out against his reportedly inferior weapons with otherwise solid armor). I think its fair to say that given a decent (but not complete) set of gear and proper skills with average luck, most Mut rogues are in the 4700-5k range, most Combat in the 4500-4800 range with Savage Combat worth roughly 500-700 raid dps (and combat rogues are the clearly superior choice for that debuff over arms warriors right now).

Hunters (getting a sizable nerf) should all be easily doing more than 5k, with many 6k+ parses. Mages tend to be in the 5k-5400 range, parses significantly over that tend to be due to abnormally exaggerated crit rates (fewer total attacks makes this much more likely than for any melee, especially rogues). Warlocks tend to be a bit scattered, a "standard" spec generally in the 4400-4800 range with an Affliction spec (generally considered 'not practical' for non-patch fights) upwards of 5k-5500. Thus, we are behind all the other pure-dps classes except for warlocks, who are able to spec for more dps if the fight allows them to concentrate fully on damage instead of survival.

As for hybrids, Enhance shaman can certainly be doing more than 5k - often up to 5200-5300. Boomkins about the same. Ele sham are in a bad state right now, Ret paladins generally in the same range as a rogue. Death Knights are certainly getting over 5k.

Now, while I'm not denying that there are guilds who have rogues in the top dps spots, I would quickly counter that by pointing out that when the BEST rogues aren't able to match the damage of the BEST of other classes (several hybrids included), we have an issue. It has been often stated that raid leaders should now be taking the best players, not the best classes. I agree with this, and when the best players are rogues, they'll be on top. However when everyone in the guild is of an equal skill, rogues fall behind. Yes we are competitive in the "overall boss damage for an instance" picture, but if we aren't competitive on any single fight - whats stopping a raid from taking the best classes for each fight. Hunters/Warriors/DKs/Enhance/etc for one fight, Mages/Locks/Boomkin/etc for the next. Certainly I realize this doesn't happen on any wide spectrum - generally just by the world-first type guilds - but it is something to consider none-the-less. Generally any fight will either by ranged or melee friendly (which is fine), rogues aren't really at an advantage or disadvantage on any fight compared to other melee. Even on longer fights - those generally don't really hurt other melee either (even the mana-using ones). Cooldowns are perhaps an issue (certain fight lengths make it a bit gimmicky for certain classes) and rogues (outside of combat - the lower dps spec) can't really do this.

My point is however that we're either a full dps class (Mutilate spec) incapable of putting out damage equal to the better players of other classes or we're a hybrid/buff class (Combat spc) which points out even less damage, certainly less than virtually every other hybrid/buff class.

 

Mideci

You, at the moment, play mutilate. A fact you readily acknowledge. The reality of Killing Spree is that aside from doing remarkably little to increase the dps of the combat-spec rogue on boss fights, is often unusable on said fights and thus provides absolutely no dps gain. Use Killing Spree on Thaddius, you can wipe the raid. Use Killing Spree on Sapphiron, you will get tail swiped.

And before we go into some song and dance about how it's theoretically possible to use the ability on those fights, let's just say it isn't. Because the risk outweighs any benefit. Now, it's true that Killing Spree is useful for Malygos' Vortex exiting, altho that ability is limited unless you spec for the glpyh, which for all we know is only cutting the Killing Spree cooldown due to a bug. And it's also worth noting that being one of 1-3 people exiting the Vortex early isn't all that exciting either. Not knowing where the raid is going makes you precariously located. And the tank may decide to reposition Malygos someplace where you are because he/she sees 21 people somewhere and doesn't really even notice you. It's, again, precarious -- albeit a nice benefit. (Of course, Malygos Phase 1 is optimized by spark stacking, not a couple percent more rogue dps if there happens to be a combat rogue in the raid.)

I suspect people are comparing it to Titan's Grip because, well, fury warriors are out-dpsing rogues. And because there isn't any downside to Titan's Grip. It just works.

Apparently many of you regard rogue utility as high because of some theoretical construct where rogues do, indeed, have raid buffs. The fact that said raid buffs (certainly the crit one) are already in your raid even if you're not makes those buffs uninteresting. Thus, actual rogue utility is very low. No one is going to miss you. They will, however, miss the ret paladin who provides not only the crit buff, but replenishment and judgments and an additional paladin buff. Again, in some construct for some of you, rogues are "comparable" to this. But they aren't. Take might/wisdom off people in a raid with, say, one paladin spec-ed kings (or the reverse, take kings off everyone) and everyone will notice. Remove Master Poisioner and no one will because that retribution paladin is not only bringing replenishment and the buff and the crit bonus, he is also outdpsing you. If he isn't, your retribution paladin is bad or somehow ungeared at this point.

This is the reality of the rogue situation. It's pretty dismal. Perhaps the best way to look at is not "oh my, rogues will lose their raid spots" but, rather, which class could your raid drop without anyone noticing. I'm not talking specific spec, just class. The answer to the question should be obvious. Your raid is unlikely to run without warriors or druids. It's very unlikely to bypass all the priests (with their healing versatility or their replenishment role) and shamans (who bring raid-wide totems, heroism, etc.). Hunters are outdpsing you and can do things with misdirect that you can't do with Tricks of the Trade (yes, the reverse is true, but, again, it's considered a nice to have, not a need to have). The aforementioned paladins are guaranteed their place for buffing and have several possible raid roles (tank, healer, dps). Your warlocks can do dps that is -- over the course of the raid -- comparable to yours and bring very unique class attributes that are missed the moment they are not present (healthstone, summoning, soulstone, curse of elements). Your mages can, again, match your damage raid-wide and feed your raid. Their AoE is essential for moving through the trash. Even your death knights can go toe-to-toe with you on dps much of the time. They can, also, switch into a tanking role at a moment's notice. Their death grip is a very powerful toon for Malygos and is probably considered a requirement by many raids. Never mind things like Ebon Plague and Horn of Winter, which are of tremendous power.

If you are not there, the raid will notice when? If a lockbox drops? Compare this to Black Temple where you also brought no essential buff, but at least you were the top dps on Gorefiend, your kicking was required on Reliquary, you probably topped the meters on Illidan. You mattered to the raid.

Today, you are a middle of the pack dpser. You will rarely be the highest dps. Your buffs are duplicative and virtually no one thinks of them as rogue buffs. (Yes, a min-maxing guild might be more savvy, but this thread is about "the state of rogues". Nevermind that min-maxing guilds were dropping rogues as far back as Sunwell anyway.)

That's the state of rogues. If you find this anything short of "dire", I wonder what game you are playing. No other class could even be considered ready for obsolescence except yours.

(I specifically left out things like "I think killing spree should have a 30 second cooldown." "I think fan of knives should cost 20 energy." "I think rogues should be able to give the raid heroism." These buffs to rogues might well make them more, well, relevant. They aren't as important as recognizing that while you can quibble with some of my analysis above and perhaps make some case that your raid really doesn't need a mage, it's very unlikely to fundamentally alter the reality that the other 9 classes would be missed a lot more than rogues. They are both essential and unique in what they bring. They are almost universally more versatile than you as well. And when they aren't, their uniqueness more than compensates.)

I don't personally believe Ghostcrawler fully gets how grim the picture is and I believe at this point he essentially is the ruling authority on fundamental game changes. But, again, I find that all secondary to the reality. And the reality is that current content doesn't require min-maxing, so bringing 2-3 rogues is not going to harm your raid much, even if it doesn't help it either. If the relative irrelevance of the class remains and the content gets more demanding, perhaps GC and the WoW team will take more serious action. For the moment, I expect little change to the class and to the status quo. I'm fortunate to have a suite of alts I can focus on gearing ahead of Ulduar. I'm not sure the average rogue is as lucky. They should hope the social aspect is on their side. Because rogues people don't like who used to get invited to raids due to perceived need are going to find the former is still probably true, but the latter is most assuredly not.

Heroism/bloodlust. Considered absolutely essential by most raids for certain fights, especially those with tight tuning, enrage periods, etc. There is nothing remotely comparable from any other class.

 

• Aldriana

1) Just because I'm current specced Mutilate doesn't mean I don't fully understand the nuances of Killing Spree. I did raid combat in Sunwell for the bulk of 3.0, leveled as combat, did all the heroics as combat, and cleared all current raid content - both 10 and 25 man - 2-3 times as combat. So I think I have a pretty good idea of how it plays. And, as I say: it's situational. Yes, you can't use it on Thaddius, and using it on Sapphiron and a few other fights is a bad idea. However, there are about a dozen other raid bosses where you *can* use it, so I'm not sure to what extent the fact that there's a few where you can't invalidates the point that it's usually a decent DPS buff.

2) So middle of the pack DPS - about the same as other classes - plus no unique raid buffs - much like other classes - adds up to our situation being "dismal"? I'm not seeing how this works. Sounds to me like it should put us... about on even footing with all the other classes. Plus, as has been noted repeatedly in this thread: good Mutilate rogues are doing damage significantly better than "middle of the pack".

 

Cirocco

Our raid buffs, unlike other classes, are not noticable by the average player, all other class get some sort of buff that are noticable as buffs, I'd list them but it's hardly necessary, rogues could have been given an agility buff but that's already been given unnecessarily as icing on the cake to Death Knight's. Can you please explain exactly what sort of even footing we are with people who provide obvious and in most case non replacable buffs, but can heal, tank, do fun and obviously usefull stuff that people really appreciate in a party or raid.

For the entirety of wow, despite the disadvantages that Blizzard put in the way of people fighting in close melee range, and despite our lack of other benifits to the raid, people knew why they where bringing the rogue to the fight, despite us soaking up healing, despite everything else, they brought us because bringing the rogue meant that things died faster. The only reason I get brought now, probably much like most of the people who are saying everything is hunky dory, is because I'm a long standing member of my guild and can play well most of the time.
,
If I didn't have so much invested in my rogue playing almost since the start of Wow I'd probably swap to one of my alts, not because anyone in my guild is asking me to, but because I can see that it would just be so much better for the raid for me to do so.

When I see our druid tank in kitty gear do pretty high dps, (high enough dps that the boss would die the same if there was another druid along instead of a rogue (and the measure of dps is really that the boss has died , no other metre registering an extra 1% or so matters)) ; battle res someone in the middle of the fight, shift back and then charge in in kitty, I don't honestly envy them that, they're my friend I'm glad they're enjoying themselves. I do ask myself why, if I'm not doing top dps anymore, don't I get to do something nice for people. Or our shaman bloodlusting, or ..etc etc.

Which exactly are these other middle of the road classes that have have non noticable replacable raid buffs, is it the ret pala damage buff, who still has kings or might on the raid?

 

• Latito

I would argue that we're in the lower end of dps (comparing equal gear and skill). This is especially true when you compare us to the other 3 pure-dps classes, the few people we do beat are all hybrids who contribute much much more to raid dps than we ever will. I think Savage Combat is a decent buff (well, debuff) that rogues bring to a raid, but it does require us to play a lower dps spec to get it (worth it for a single rogue in the raid for sure). Several classes have a unique buff still (Kings, Heroism/Bloodlust, etc) and many other classes provide a "Best option" for having a specific debuff, as opposed to just a secondary backup option.

Perhaps I am indirectly (not so much anymore) saying that the bulk of the non-rogue dps in your raid, Ald, isn't up to par with their counterparts in other guilds (be it gear or skill or buffs, I don't know). Many other excellent rogues are doing 4800-5k dps in their raids, and NOT in the top 3 or 5 such as the case may be for you. I don't see how someone, after looking at many WWS's from various guilds can state that rogues are doing damage significantly better than middle-of-the-pack. We're not as bad of as say, elemental shaman, but we're not as competitive as other classes, imo. Warlocks would perhaps be the closest to us in terms of state.

 

• Neto-

You're missing the point that those things can be said for pretty much all classes. A lot of different classes/spec bring the same buffs, so after you have them taken care of, it doesn't matter if you bring two of them. The fact that we don't bring any buff (despite not being true) is meaningless, as you aren't losing any more than, say, bringing two feral druids.

A Combat rogue is the most optimal way to get the Blood Frenzy/Savage Combat debuff; I'd hardly call 2% physical damage increase an "unnoticeable" buff.

@Latito, from the parses I've seen, we're consistently at 5k+ DPS and most classes that beat us are around 5200 - and Patchwerk is definitely a better fight for, say, a Mage or a Hunter than for a rogue. That difference is fairly meaningless, in my opinion, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is taken care of by gear scaling and Murder functioning (Ulduar).

 

saedo

Every buff is replaceable by someone else. You only need about 8 people to get all the buffs, then any extra is just redundant. How would you classify those redundant buffers? Backup? Utility that should never be used in a good raid? Would they be lumped together with the pure DPS spots?

 

Cirocco

As that combat rogue providing the Savage combat debuff, which is an unnoticable debuff, not in terms of it's benefit, but in terms of most players actualy noticing it, I'm so glad that I'll be able to look forward to a dps boost when murder starts to kick in.

 

Kumar

From what I have seen till now (and I am behind the DKs and Fury Warrior in my guild in terms of gear), DKs and Fury Warriors will scale nicely with gear too, particularly from what I have seen Fury Warriors will. Also, the specific point about Murder helping out leaves out Combat Rogues (who as you say are the best for brinding the 2% dmg increase buff).

 

ohnoes

I really don't see how a rogue is going to scale better then lets say, a fury warrior or a fire mage. Thats the biggest thing that worries me about this is that, warriors have always scaled better then any class and now a fire mage is going to be the same way with the way crit works for them, so I can't say I agree with that statement in rogues are going to scale better then most or all classes.