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Caydiem ~
I realize that you have been met with a great deal of hostility and anger, and I have created this post in hopes that you will see it, and understand why we are in a state of total uproar.
First off, I know very well that there are no class representatives, but you are largely identified as being a druid cheerleader, whether this view is justified or not. So some of us may feel that you coming over and basically telling us that our class is fine and has little to nothing wrong with it, when you have only a level 50-55ish rogue that you have only recently dusted off after being shelved for several months and some of us have been playing a rogue for months (I have been playing my rogue, almost exclusively, since January) is highly insulting. I'm not saying anything myself, I'm just trying to get you to see where we're coming from.
Secondly, the idea that the developers seem to have that rogues are fine as they are, when month by month a class is going to be supercharged and/or revamped, is extremely unsettling. We may be somewhat "fine" now (though I find that point debatable), but I can tell you that if other classes get the same treatment druids and hunters have, we are going to be significantly weaker than all other classes by the time the developers finally see fit to look at us, to the point where we as well may need a revamp. For example, we used to have a fair shot at taking down a hunter, but now hunters are extremely tough to take down even with the element of surprise, which is increasingly difficult to get. Stealth detection has been increasingly buffed with each patch, and so we have been helplessly watching as our primary offense and defense has in effect been slowly stripped from us. If things continue the way they have been, there will be no point in even stealthing - they'll be able to see us coming miles away.
I know that sounds far-fetched, but I was dueling a druid once, with his PvP gear on, which gives a "SLIGHT" bonus to stealth detection. He switched to cat form and stealthed, and I stealthed. After the duel started, he hit me with Faerie fire, while I was stealthed, from 30 yards away. I checked - he was just barely in bow range, yet he could easily see through my stealth. I asked him about it - he used no potions, goggles, or buffs of any kind, and we were not in a party. I use this story as an illustration to how ineffective I find stealth to be in PvP. I had master of deception maxed out, by the way.
Another reason we are angry is we feel our roles in the endgame are being stripped from us, especially in PvE situations. I for one am angry that druids have been given the ability to surpass our damage on a raw scale. On the day of the patch, I found that I couldn't top a 1400 eviscerate crit, fully charged, whereas the feral druids in my guild were talking about crits on the upscale of 2300. Tell me, why in the world would any raiding guild take a rogue over a druid if that druid can not only deal more raw damage than the rogue, but also look after his own health to a certain extent?
Stuns
Yes, we can stun, but our stuns are next to not useful at all in places like Molten Core, and very limited in use in Zul Gurrub. We have no uses in raiding zones except damage - we have very low armor for a class that must fight on the front lines toe-to-toe, and we are very large mana sinks for healing classes. We require much closer attention and healing than other melee classes because we are very fragile and have low HP.
Role in the Game
The rogue page on the World of Warcraft website is extremely misleading about our class:
Q u o t e:
the Rogues of Azeroth are most comfortable when acting in the background. Twisting events to their favor, striking only when advantage is greatest: this is where a Rogue excels.
Vague at best. "Twisting events to their favor"? The image that sentence brings to mind is a rogue sitting behind a raiding party poking pins in a voodoo doll of the mob, HOPING that events will be twisted "to their favor".
Q u o t e:
They are also worthy scouts, being able to sneak past monsters if they are skilled enough to see what lies beyond. And there's no one better than a Rogue at the end of a dungeon when a locked chest or door stands between you and hard-earned riches.
First off, in level 60 instances, there is ALWAYS some kind of monster that can see us stealthed from miles away, so the first sentence is an outright lie, at least in high-level instances. Secondly, besides random chests scattered throughout instances which rarely encountered, sometimes locked, sometimes not, there is virtually zero reason to bring a rogue for this sort of thing. No quest items are locked away in a chest that only a rogue can lockpick. No epic or rare reward loot is in a chest that you need a rogue to open, so why did the developers even bother to bring up this very misleading point on the class description page?
For me, I am absolutely baffled at what the point of a rogue is, except to assassinate single targets in PvP and therefore make us the target of the caster class's hate on the forums. We have almost no utility or role in the end, or even in lore. Warlocks will have a great deal to do with Outland and Demonic aspects of Warcraft, Paladins have their role as champions and heros of the Alliance as well as the rebirth of the Order of the Silver Hand, Druid will have a major role in upcoming Emerald Dream content, Mages are currently having their city of Dalaran rebuilt, Shamans are the counterparts to Paladins and champions of the horde, and Priests will always be needed as caretakers of the Light. I suppose warriors and hunters are in the same boat we are as far as lore is concerned, but as for gameplay role, we stand alone as a completely unneccessary and unneeded class. You could eliminate the whole rogue class from the game and not miss a thing as far as lore and utility is concerned.
Ravenholdt Manor had great potential for our class, but the developers saw fit to giving us a reapeatable quest for throwing knives and a small chain for some less-than-decent gear and then letting the place rot. Why waste the pixel space and artwork if you aren't going to bother to do anything with it? The developers essentially heard our pleas for some more content, and in response, they give us a bag of knives, which are an extremely gimped weapon in the first place, as Blizzard has indirectly admitted - knives give no stats and do weaker damage than bows/arrows and guns/bullets. No sane player would EVER use throwing knives, yet we are handed these by the developers and we are expected to be content? Are you really surprised that we are disgruntled at this point?
Why were druids given the leader of the pack ability? Why are they allowed to surpass us in terms of raw damage when they are not limited by default to only dealing damage if they don't want to be? Why did druid damage recieve a SIGNIFICANT buff while ours took a hit, to the point where they surpass us in raw damage?
Rogues also stand alone as the only class completely incapable of buffing other members of a raiding party, and I find this as an illustration of the problem of our class as a whole. We bring nothing to a raid that no other class can do just as well, if not better. In some cases, we are only brought along so Nightslayer isn't sharded, and in other cases (such as the core hound packs in Magmadgar's cavern) we are literally of no use whatsoever. We want to be NEEDED to a raiding party just as much as a priest or warrior is VITAL to a raid's success. You can easily take down Ragnaros without a rogue in your raid. You cannot take him down without priests or warriors.
Talents
I want to now talk a little bit about our talent tree, which the developers claim as being completely fine and in no need of changes.
ASSASSINATION -
Remorseless Attacks - I found it only useful when grinding to level 60. After level 60, it stopped being as useful in raids and groups. I feel this should be changed - one thing I would suggest is increasing the length of its effect from 15 seconds to perhaps a minute or until when it's used.
Ruthlessness - Gives a chance to add a single combo point after using a finishing move. Finishing moves aren't really all that "finishing" if your target is still alive to take more damage and combo points, are they? Anyways, for the talent point requirement for this, it should give more bang for our buck than just adding one combo point after a finisher.
Lethality - Ambush used to be enchanced by this talent, but is not anymore. Why?
Vile Poisons, Improved Instant Poison, and Improved Deadly Poison - These talents are pretty much just fillers, and they're pretty scattered. This is sort of like how there were two Faerie Fires for druids before patch 1.8. Anyways, Rogues really only use one poison end-game - crippling poison. Keeping our target in arms reach is far more vital than adding a minor DOT or having a 20% chance to deal an extra 100 damage or so. In places like Molten Core or Zul Gurrub, most if not all mobs resist our poisons so using them is a waste of money. In short, the entire aspect of poisons needs to be addressed. Some are not useful in any way, shape or form, such as wounding poison, some have nice perks to them, like instant or deadly poisons, but one is vital to PvP far far more than any other: crippling poison. Poisons should be redone. Give me a reason to use something other than crippling (or, how about combining crippling and deadly, or crippling and mind-numbing?) and we will. If mobs could not resist our poisons in Molten Core or ZG, that in itself would make us much more useful in end-game.
Cold Blood - The bread and butter of Eviscerate. If eviscerate doesn't crit, it's 5 combo points wasted. Cold Blood needs to stick with Eviscerate (or Backstab, Ambush, or Sinister Strike) until it actually hits. As of right now, if a Cold Blood eviscerate misses (and it almost always does against MC mobs or warriors), then we have just wasted a cooldown for nothing. I suggest making the Cold Blood effect do exactly what it says it does: guarantee a critical strike on the next Ambush, Backstab, Sinister Strike, or Eviscerate. The effect should not wear off till one of these attacks is successful. Combo points do not go away if an Eviscerate misses, so neither should Cold Blood.
COMBAT -
Lightning Reflexes - I've seen the hunter version of this talent, and I have to say I would give anything to trade their talent for ours. Hunter's Lightning Reflexes enhances their agility by 3%, 6%, 9%, 12%, and 15% and is higher up in the talent tree. Ours just adds to dodge. Why? Agility is our primary attribute, the stat we depend on for our damage, armor, dodge rate, and attack power, exponentially moreso than hunters do. Each point of agility gives us 2 points of attack power, versus the 1 point it gives hunters. I would love to trade our dodge for more agility. I think other rogues would too.
Aggression - Decent, but why is it so high in the talent tree? I suggest switching places with it and "Lighting Reflexes", and making Lighting Reflexes give agility bonuses rather than dodge.
Throwing Weapon Specialization - Wow. There is only one other talent more useless than this, and I will get to that talent later. It has already been admitted that throwing weapons are much weaker than bows and guns, which rogues can and do use, yet the developers seem determined to make us use a gimped type of weapon. Why? If throwing daggers could have poison applied to them, that would be one thing, but throwing knives do not benefit us at all, so we have no reason to use them. That makes Throwing Weapon Specialization a total waste of talent points and a slap in the face to rogues in general. This talent should be either eliminated completely, as there is no reason at all to waste (yes, I said WASTE and I meant it) points on this worthless "talent", moved far down the combat tree (like on the first tier), or changed. I guess the biggest question is that considering how this "talent" benefits rogues (hint - it doesn't), why is it so far up the tree?
SUBTLETY -
Improved Garrote - the worst possible opener you could use. The only reason a rogue would use garrote is if he uses swords and his target is immune to stuns, in which case this will only be used in PvE situations. Garrote is extremely weak in the first place, so why does the talent increase the duration of its effect but LOWER the damage dealt? A priest's Improved Shadow Word: Pain increases the duration but does NOT decrease the damage dealt. Why is our garrote made weaker under the guise of an "improved" garrote? We only use it for damage, not duration, so there would be no reason to make the effect last longer for us if it meant doing less damage. I can only think of ONE thing that this would be useful on - other rogues, and even then it's far far less useful an opener as, say, ambush or cheapshot. Other than that, it's a useless talent and ability.
Improved Distract: This is the OTHER worthless talent, the first one being Throwing Weapon Specialization. Seriously, why the HELL would we put talent points in something that only increases the AREA we can distract? Distract already has a pretty big radius, so giving us a talent to make it even BIGGER, and make it require 20 points in the tree is a real headscratcher. I have to wonder - what were they thinking putting in real stinker talents like this? A talent should be something you will really use, not something you feed points into just so you can put points in something higher than it.
Preparation - I know I will get alot of flack for this, but I feel that Preparation is a cheese move used by untalented rogues as a crutch to beat a player they don't have enough talent against. I think this should be gotten rid of and replaced with something else, and make all of our cooldowns on three minute timers instead of five. Shortening the cooldowns to 3 instead of 5 minutes would also make "Elusiveness" obsolete, allowing for something better to be put in its place.
Premeditation - For what it does, this is a real stinker of a 31 point talent. Must be used in a 15 yard range, 1 second cast, and must be used within 10 seconds of casting...that's pretty limiting for a 31-pointer. This should be a ten-point talent, or it should be changed to 30-yard range, and the effect should be cancelled out only by switching targets. Think about it - this ability is mostly useful if you are stalking a player. You'll need more than 10 seconds to work out and "premeditate" your attack or it'll be a waste of time, effort, and an ability. Make its effect last longer and let it be used from 30 yards. This will make it much more useful in hunting down and assassinating single targets.[ post edited by Lonawolfe ]
"ZOMG! NERF CATS!" <---Mouse
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