Rogues on alpha

Classes Rogue
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Since I’m still new and unable to reply on alpha forums I’m writing this here so bear with me please. Most of the alpha feedback has been made by PVE players and almost all PVP complaints were from other classes. Immediately after, rogues lost garrote silence on class tree and it has been replaced by shiv.

The other complaint I often see (and I agree with it) is ER being the last cap stone in class tree, mist minigame with overcharged cp for sub rogues and sepsis being all over other class trees. There is also a heated discussion about slice and dice on the forums but it seems that people can’t really agree on what to do with it. So, as a passionate PVP player I’d like to suggest something radical. Feel free to tune it down to some reasonable level in the discussion. The capstone that should replace ER should be a talent affecting two rogue stuns, kidney shot and cheap shot.

Through the years we’ve witnessed the class homogenization crumble the identity of many classes. This is mostly true for rogues. DR has been introduced between cs and ks, every other class has some kind of stun (exception to paladins, they always had it) and it seems that stuns in PVE aren’t that prevalent. (Correct me if I’m wrong here. I’ve been raiding fated raids and most trash mobs resist stuns). Prey on the weak works only 5% in PVP and in PVE it is mostly useless. Don’t make me start about cs generating only 1 combo point now.

The name for the talent should be a subject to change (I like jokes), but my suggestion is to replace the ER with the following capstone:

Sit down!: Your cheap shot and kidney shot now always land and can no longer be resisted or broken in most circumstances.

Before I elaborate, I’d like to say that the stuns should still be removable by PVP trinket and raid/dungeon bosses should still be resisting stuns. In addition any full immunity (i.e. bubble) should also give the resistance.

Everyone and everything else, however, is on the table. Dk popping icebound? Tough luck, my rogue landed so many kidney shots that now, in patch 10.0, it’s practically a form of art. Monk kicking and punching? Buddy, your kidneys are exposed. Other rogue popping evasion or demon hunter blurring around? Sorry, but I’m interested in your kidneys. You are orc or human? It doesn’t matter. In PVP, this is a reasonably broken scenario. Suddenly, fight between 2 rogues is a game of nerves. Other classes know that rogue running to them means that they will be stunned and have to act accordingly. In PVE trash mob clearing is now nice and efficient since rogue can pop shadow dance and stun half of the pack.

Now, I understand that what I’m suggesting is potentially really broken. If the discussion heats up, it will attract a lot of people horrified by the suggestion and in these kinds of threads there is usually someone explaining how it “isn’t fun to die in stun and be perma stuned” but do we really have a choice in this meta? Most of the time your aim is to set up the kill and most of the time target indeed dies in a stun. Besides, being blasted by 2x 46k chaos bolts also isn’t fun. Most of the dpses healing often as a healer also isn’t fun. But we are stuck here, are we not? So either remove the stuns form other classes or give rogue stuns some unique flavor. I’m against any pruning so the option 2 it is.

There are several things I’d like to offer as a compensation. First, in case something like this really happens kidney shot’s cd should be bumped on 30s instead of 20. Second thing is something blizz already tweeted about, deeper stratagem probably won’t work on kidney in DF. Make it once again 6s and be done with it. In general I find the trend that deeper stratagem started really bad. Any tweaking with numbers of combo points is bad for the class design. Fix it on 5. No deeper, no double deeper and especially no animacharge bullsh*t.

If the talent I’ve suggested seems too strong, potential other options are to simply increase the strength of stuns via deeper strat and charged cps. Once again, I think this is bad for the game but hey. Allow us to have 8s kidneys. Make prey on the weak great again. Remove DR between cs and ks (the last one is probably a bit of an overkill). A reasonable middle ground is to make it a button similar to cold blood and on 45s cooldown. Leave everything else as it is. Your thoughts?

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Seems like a balancing nightmare. I don’t really see this being something they’d even test out. If they think Smoke Bomb is too strong to give Rogues baseline, something like this doesn’t have a snowballs chance in the Firelands.

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What about cold-blood like version?

4

Do you mean, Press Sit Down!, and your next Cheap/Kidney Shot is guaranteed to connect? Or just make it a 3rd Stun Button?

I dunno, the more I think about it, Stun as a Cap Stone Talent just feels like a bad fit. It’s way too situational, and since our old Toolkit already has pretty good control options, it doesn’t feel necessary, making it a dead Talent for the vast majority of the Playerbase. With Shadow Dance becoming a Class Talent, I think there’s not necessarily a need to add more CC options.

Maybe the idea of adding more Class Flavor should be approached differently. Mobility and Defensives, but designed and themed around it being somehow disruptive to your enemies. Smoke Bomb, even just as a LoS tool would be a perfect fit. I also think Traps are something that would fit Rogues perfectly. Not just explosives, but Trip Wires or maybe throw marbles on the floor, for your enemies to slip over. Maybe some Vials with a sticky goo, to slow down people in it. For something even more out of the box I have 2 suggestions:

  • In the Class Tree, make 4-6 a choice node, so you can choose between Shadowstep and Grappling Hook. This would give all Specs the option for either adding charges to ShS or GH, or have both abilities. This would have a lot of big, but subtle implications to all Specs.

  • My second suggestion has to do with Utility. Instead of just one Class having a Special Utility, like Death Grip and Demonic Gateway, treat those things similarly to Battle Res and Bloodlust. The Evoker is apparently getting Lust, so it’s 4 Classes able to provide that buff in Dragonflight. Battle Rez is also likely gonna be given to a new Class, Paladins most likely (these come straight from an interview Ion had yesterday). So, have different groups of Classes share certain utilities, where it fits the Class Concept. I could see Monks with a Stampeding Roar themed to the August Celestials, Mages with an Arcane Gateway, Warriors with Lust for War (Bloodlust, basically).

For Rogues, the ability could be Long Arm of the Outlaw, a Death Grip like ability to pull your target to you. This would fit perfectly with the idea of a Rogue cheating to win, it would be situational, but still powerful. Not a Cap Stone Talent, but it would definitely build on the Rogue Fantasy.

Just food for thought.

5

Yes, you press the button and the next stun connects 100%. In addition it can not be canceled by anything but pvp trinket and racials do not work on it. Perhaps in this case, it is a bit too weak for a capstone. My goal here was to emphasise the fact that stuns were always core for rogues, but through the years they’ve become staple abilities. I can agree that rogue stuns are arguably one of the strongest stuns in the game, but adding a bit more flavor to them was my idea here.

As for the class favor, I agree with your approach. I sincerely like the idea of tripwires. To expand on it, I think something like around the rogue distract would be nice, you press it and everyone facing you turns you back. With that in mind its time to give rogues disarm trap and detect traps again. And can we finally make the pick pocket and lock picking useful? There is nothing more annoying that doing quests where I have to pick the keys for cages or chests with lockpicking not working at all.

Another way to approach this in class tree is to give us some new strong openers that can not be spammed in shadow dance (to prevent the abuse). The original design for a class had this in mind - stun, strong nuke damage or semistrong but long bleed. Nowdays it feels like I have to press shadowstrike just to do damage while backstab simply tickles. It just doesn’t feel that rewarding when you finally press that opener 1s before the sap on the enemy player ends.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Shadow techniques has to go or has to be reworked. I’ve read somewhere a fantastic suggestion that it should behave like a buff “your next combo point generator generates 1 extra combo point”.

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I feel like rogues already have enough control. So many cc on one class with such defense and damage is hard to counter. Rogues don’t need more control. They either need to lose cc or dmg or defense. Right now they got everything

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All other classes had some changes on alpha this week. Except for rogues. Just sayin’.

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I’d have been quite surprised, had they actually continued doing some work on Rogues. They don’t do that kinda stuff too often. Beyond some number tuning, I don’t expect to see the Talent Trees getting much more iteration before DF. I’d love to be wrong, but I rarely am. =P

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My Points for Rogue

Why does Our Main Tree feel like we only invest points too get thinks back that they take out of our spellbook

Feint, Tricks of the trait, Evasion, Cloak of shadow, Blind, Sap

Points should improve this spells not bring them back (Evasion now last xsec longer if u get meele hits and so on)

Mark of Death as an aktiv ability should not be in the parth so its mandatory too take if you want reach something else

Dead Talent Feint;
20%Feint damage reduktion is way too low if u consider you have too spend multiple points too get it, its cost Energie (Assa is starved) its not passive you need too press it active, if in this time no damage hits it is waisted( not useable in stuns), imagine 2 Point for 10%hp each wich is aktive 100% too survive stuff would be 10 times better
(25%should be fine, or it give u Energie instat cost)

PvP Talents:
For Assa there should be a Poisen and Bleed dispel protaction with give you your spent Energie back
(Evoker 1 min Bleed dispell and Hunter need a counter PvP Talent)

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Because that’s the entire point of how they are designing all Talent Trees. This is true for every Class, not a Rogue-only thing. It’s just a different approach. Instead of looking at it from the perspective of multiple expansions based on Borrowed Power Systems, Dragonflight is effectively resetting things.

Imagine a new Player picking up the game, you’ve been leveling for tens of levels, then you reach the Level Cap and suddenly you are introduced to a host of new Power Progression Systems, all of which are complexly intertwined with each other, to the point where even most veteran Players will have no intuitive idea on how effective any individual choice is. DF is scrapping all that, and focusing on the core Class and Spec experience. As you level, you will then progress in a more logical way, and you only have one big System to learn and understand, instead of a handful of stuff tied together with shoestring.

We can argue about how well Blizzard can execute this plan, but the idea, at least, is a good one, and a significant improvement over all the Artifact and Azerite Powers, Corruptions, Legendaries and other crap we’ve had to deal with since Legion.

As far as PvP Talents go, I think the very idea is a mistake. There should be no PvP Talents, those things should all be part of the Class and Spec Trees. PvP and PvE should share the same Toolkit, even if there is number tuning to the abilities.

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Not true Hunters don’t have too choose tourtel too get it back or exaliration, they got improvem3nts with points
Like lower cd or x %heal over time for the healing spell

Sure there are more exampels but i play Hunter 2cnd Main and there i was like hold on wthell happens on Rogue

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it’s going slow because Realz who makes our tree has been busy making the DH tree.

believe he’s confirmed that shadow mist will be changing at least. there’s also clear issues that are basically mandatory to fix, especially that you can take stiletto without shadow techniques and shadowed finishers without find weakness.

but also half the tree does not work properly or at all. for example:

  • flag doesn’t gain stacks at all
  • gloomblade doesn’t work
  • the rotten doesn’t work
  • the subtlety dance and the class tree deeper don’t work
  • tight spender does the opposite of what it’s supposed to
  • shadowstep doesn’t work most of the time
  • improved ambush gives +50 and +100 combo points instead of 50% and 100% chance

and there’s a lot more. testing is a lot of pretending how it’s supposed to work. rogue is definitely in an alpha state. so there’s lots to do still, ofc nobody knows how much they’ll end up doing.

2 Likes
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A lot of great points here.

Tbh, I’m not a great fan of double vanish. It sure can be useful, but I like the cooldowns to have meaningful impact. You press a button and for x amount of time you can’t press it, so you better make it count. However, when I take a look at what the other classes are getting, I’m afraid that double vanish will become mandatory for most of the sub players in pvp.

I get you, but I really wanna believe the rumors that we are simply just waiting for our turn. I just hope that Realz sees these side discussions as well so that the voice of the people not on beta test is also heard. When it comes to number tuning, I believe most of us find the dps nodes boring. Increases damage of X ability by Y should be ok here and there but right now entire sub tree feels really boring. Besides, while assa got new poisons and really cool capstone talents, we are stuck with boring legendary like abilities on sub. There is nothing game changing, its just staple damage increase. Shadow blades is already joke as it is, now symbols of death’s effects have been spread out through what, 3-4 nodes? We get nothing new, but we need to invest really hard to get the old stuff back. I’m not saying give me all my stuff baseline, just condense the baseline stuff and make me choose between that and something new.

I for once agree with something like this. At least for the poisons, since bleed dispels are relatively rare. Right now, in pvp you are forced to use crippling poison and still some classes can outrun you. Making it harder to dispel it would be interesting. Another concept I really liked was creeping venom. If it was baked into our kit instead of on pvp talent it would make rogue more desirable for kiting big pack of mobs.

What i would really like to see is some kind of update to our outdated spells. Why is sprint still on 70% increased speed? Right now, it is nearly impossible to catch some classes in pvp. I want to avoid finger pointing and statements such as “This class is more powerful than mine, give me what they have”, but one needs to assert that the current kit is outdated.

When talking specifically about the sprint (I’m keeping in mind shadowstep and hook) the main problem seems to be that it doesn’t feel good when you press it. Have you tried to chase down good mage, hunter or monk? It is nearly impossible without sprint. My suggestion is to bump the movement speed increase on 100% (i believe it was set on 70% during the cata era) and bake the maneuverability pvp talent into it. When it comes to mobility of other classes, it seems that some of them have very easy time when both engaging and disengaging in pvp. Meanwhile, if you are playing sub rogue (assuming you are saving vanish and you’ve already opened) you have 2 shadowstep charges and sprint to get to your target. However, if they turn the tables on you, running away may require vanish or some other cd. Making sprint a bit more flexible would also help in overworld content and would feel like a nice QoL change.

Finally, I’d really love to see some work on our openers. As I have stated earlier, the initial idea was that rogue should have 3 strong ways on beginning the fight - stun, nuke or put a long bleed for heavy damage. It used to be that you need to think before you open. If you are fighting dk, you may wanna consider silencing him first. You want to stun war or pala, silence the mage since he can blink during the stun, nuke someone with ambush if your partner will do cc and so on.

Now on, our openers, while arguably still powerful, don’t require too much planning . Hell, you can’t even put a bleed on someone as outlaw and sub since garrote has been pushed onto assa. Which leaves you with cs or ambush/shadowstrike. If you open with cs on the main target, kidney has to wait for dr to fall off, if you open with shadowstrike you tickle them a bit. I’d love to see more power shifted to opener moves, even if it is only from stealth and the shadow dance is excluded. A good idea for class tree would be to set improved openers as capstone talents, or give us some new openers.

Improve shadowstrike/ambush by doubling its damage while used from stealth. Make it so that the initial one really makes some impact and the target realizes that it has been attacked by rogue. (I can tell you many stories about me ganking people in zereth morthis only for them to figure out that its not the elite that’s hitting them, but me as well after like 3s).

An alternative is giving us ambush-like opener that simply does damage. Something like assassinate ability. No teleports, no procs, no slows, simple hard hitting damage button. But when you press it, it feels good since it chops off 15-25% of targets health. Ofc, its use is now limited, if you open with something like that, there are no slows, no find weakness procs, you can’t teleport with it behind the target, you get maybe one cp only and it consumes your subterfuge if you have it. Make it with 30s cd so you also can’t spam it. So yes, you did a lot of damage but now you are stuck with enraged warrior swinging and axe into your face.

Improve cs by making it generate more combo points or make target more vulnerable during its 4s. Prey on the weak is great concept, but perhaps making it really strong for cheap shot would make the ability more desirable to use in some scenarios. As rogue you then wonder do you wanna save kidney for you target and have it under the cc longer, or you go with cs and try to nuke it to make it panic or force trinket. It is healthy for the class that you need to make these kinds of decisions.

As for the new openers, we are missing some strong poison-theme opener. A combo were you apply all available poisons to you on your target for next 5 seconds, or you apply both nonlethal poisons as their shiv variants onto your target would be a refreshment for strategic planing.

The last type of opener might not really be rogue themed, but perhaps this direction could be considered as well. Some kind of self-buff opener - maybe you opt not to go after your opponent immediately, instead you apply some very strong version of slice and dice on yourself for the next 15s. Or maybe you “harden your intent to kill” and open on target with some moderate damage, but you get cc immunity for the first 5s of the fight.

I am well aware that if the balance isn’t done right, then there will always be “the best opener to use” and we want to avoid that scenario.

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