My mains currently are a Night Elf dagger rogue with decent raid gear and a Night Elf hunter. I love the aesthetics of Night Elfs and their lore, however In TBC I want to focus on Arenas with my rogue while focusing on Raiding with my Hunter. I started reading on Rogue pvp arena and I was shocked how much people are against night elf rogues as it is considered a meme race/class combo. I got to the point where I am almost discouraged in continuing playing my Night elf rogue and I am debating myself if I should re-roll to a Human Rogue as people say that they are extremely powerful in TBC arena (getting the opener vs druids/rogues due to perception.)
Are the racials really that important in Arena? Is there any way I can stick to my Nelf rogue and make a use of the extra stealth passive, agility and dodge change, and be able to be competitive in Arena or are all other racials just that much better than Night Elf to the point where I’ll be considered a meme?
PS: I want to do a lot of world pvp as well and as Horde will dominate the servers, I want to stick to Alliance so I can easily find pvp in the world. Otherwise, I would’ve consider re-rolling to Undead or Blood Elf (AOE silence sounds really good).
Shadow meld also passively increases stealth level for rogues and druids and what I have found out is that it increases it by 5 points. A 5/5 Master of Deception talent increases stealth level by 3 per point so 15 points in total, so that means NE’s have 20 point bonus stealth but humans can still can catch me with perception in Arena. I wonder if Nelf passive will give me the advantage against other rogues (other than Human).
I would go Human if I’m honest - this isn’t exactly “minmaxing” it’s just using the MASSIVE advantage that is Perception, there’s going to be a lot of teams with Druids/Rogues and getting the opener is huge.
Night Elf offers the least out of all Alliance Rogues for PvP tbh Dwarfs have stoneform to remove Warrior Bleeds, Hunter stings and Rogues poisons (blind is psychical in TBC though) if they want to restealth.
Gnomes have escape artist which is still handy even with CloS, Shadowstep etc
Humans have perception which is king in Arena the only other racial that comes close for rogue is WoTF.
“Meme” in this case implies something that is technically worthless and just played for the sake of playing it.
This isn’t the case here. A NE rogue can play at the top echelons of each arena season, because hello hello: It’s still a rogue.
Racials are important, but nowhere near as important as some people say. Sure, in a match between two 2400 rating players, a minor difference in racials can be the tipping point, all other things considered equal.
However: Most people aren’t 2400 ELO players. For that matter, most people aren’t even 1800 ELO players.
At the level where most of us play, very very basic things like “don’t target the wrong dude” or “don’t out-LoS your mates heal godamnit!” matter waaaaay more than racials.
Are you a highend-PvP player, whos going for glad every season? Then you need to worry about racials. If not, play what you like based on aesthetics (they play a huge role in motivation), and focus on getting the basics right, that will help you more than any racial.
In my opinion, unless you’re a super competitive min-max meta type of player, don’t bother rerolling. If you’re playing a faction/race/class spec you don’t genuinely enjoy, you may find less motivation to play and less connection to your character - which could actually lead to your performing worse than you would have if you had your whole heart into it, or even quit your character altogether!
The first question is: Do you want to aim for a gladiator title?
Only if the awnser to that is yes, then you should consider rerolling.
All alliance rogue races have pro’s and cons
Gnome: small frame harder to see / target and can use escape artist. Best vs mages
Dwarf: Stoneform makes fighting other rogues a breeze. Best vs other Rogues
Human: Perception allows you to see other stealthers better. Note if they are not within range its a usefless racial. Best vs other Stealthers
Nightelves: Higher stealth values and higher avoidance Best for opening fighting non warrior melee.
So no i wouldnt consider respeccing, unless one of the above race combo’s feel mandatory AND you plan on going for Gladiator title
100% true. I was a Tauren warrior (dps) back in the day. Did i get raidspots guaranteed everytime? No. But he was my main and I enjoyed playing him still. I mostly focused on PvP instead. And it fit me as I was busy with school anyways.
It really depends on what version of shadowmeld we get in tbc classic I vaguely remember being able to use it to drop combat in arena or dungeons but I also remember it wasn’t like that at the start of expansion.
I wouldn’t say “Only if your going for Glad”
I would base it off my own experience and how I rolled Dwarf Rogue in Classic entirely because I wanted Stoneform and only wanted to PvP on that char every time I used it in PvP against Blind or against Hunters and Warriors to stoneform and vanish I’d enjoy it massively, it improved my experience of the class that I had such a handy extra tool at my disposal.
Racials in early WoW was absolutely broken, people like to talk down their significance quite often but they do give very clear advantages and can turn the table on the Rock > Paper > Scissors format (WoTF for example) and even change the way some people play or play against you. (for example a Paladin is less likely to want to use HoJ on an Orc if they have the choice of another non-orc target close by).
So even if your not going for gladiator you should be thinking if you stay Night Elf will you regret not having Perception, not winning games you would have won otherwise and which experience would be more fun for you over the period of TBC which is going to have a long life span (hopefully).
Finally if we are to assume that TBC Classic is a big hit as Classic was at release and they decide in a few years to bring out WoTLK Classic then Human Rogue becomes even stronger with Every Man for Himself and there’s no denying the massive power spike this racial gives to the rogue class. If that’s going to happen it makes it even more enticing to play Human Rogue.
You do have a point here even in classic you join PvP horde generally have more warlocks and priests and rogues than Allience why is that.
Allience generally don’t PvP much with warlocks and priests as fear is almost useless when 40% of the enemy team can break out of fear 2x due to trinket and WTOF
Exact same with rogues Vs orcs with upto 45% chance to reduce stun effects what’s the point.
Allience tend to have more warriors and hunters because of gnome racial and shadowmeld good on maps like defending ab
As for the op tho shadowmeld does have its uses in PvP maybe not as much for rogue class since they have stealth but it may give his team the advantage against other stealth teams as perception is only good if you know where to look and once it’s used he will have the advantage but if he’s skilled at the class he will climb regardless
I was in a hard situation to pick and level my first Alliance character. Couldn’t find anything appealing except female Night Elf for Warrior class.
Play whatever you enjoy seeing. It is a fantasy game.
If I ever buy Blizzard, I’ll find and fire those who designed Alliance races. Because of them, I couldn’t play Vanilla with my buddies.
short answer…if you wanna go arenas and aim for some decent ratings…then yes…perception is very OP and will most likely guarantee you the opener vs any other rogues that are not humans…if ur not into arena meta gameplay and u just wanna wpvp and some bgs then id say go with what u like the most
Thank you for the replies guys! I decided to stick with my Night Elf rogue and get good at playing Arena and the class as a whole. Once I start feeling that I am loosing Arenas not because of a skill gap but because of racials , then I’ll most likely re-roll but I do not plan being so hard core and I doubt I’ll even get close to Gladiator, to reach that point. Thanks guys!