No matter if its retail or cata classic. No matter if its EU or US servers. No matter if its Pve or pvp servers. No matter if its Horde or Alliance. Rogue (+Hunter/Warlock) is always the least played class. (Source: IronforgePro/wowanalytica)
What is the reason for this? Button bloat? Bad leveling? Slice and Dice?
I used to be a subtlety rogue main, from WOTLK to WOD. I stopped playing the class entirely after Legion.
I loved backstab, ambush and hemorrhage. I liked their animations and the unique sound they made.
I also liked having to position behind my target to use backstab. It could be tricky but it was also rewarded by the fact that this attack had very high base damage.
Now, the specialization is completely different. It has too many modifiers, too many gimmicks, and the attacks are boring and generic. Who even asked for boring spells like “Symbol of Death”? Even Shadow Blades is lame.
They just killed everything that made Subtlety interesting.
I don’t hate the rogue class, but there’s definitely too much stuff on the action bars at max level for comfort.
I think it is fair to say that the class is overall on the higher end of the difficulty curve to play decently. That’s going to put a lot of players off almost immediately.
Too complicated.
Too squishy.
I barely see any rogues in M+. I love having one along, but I almost never have any in the application queue.
I have never been able to level a rogue to max, rogue and dk just is not for me i guess 
i have decided i will level a vulpera rogue in the panda thing though so maybe i’ll be able to get one to max finally.
Main rogue from classic until 2019.
At some point it doesn’t bring anything to the raid like the majority of classes.
Subtely is a top quality to play spec but 2 much gear-depended .(Also sems the only pvp viable class rogues have )
Outlaw to much Rng that at some point is pretty awful (Aoe with Blade fury is ok_ )
Assasination , well it’s just the basic spec that after a period is become boring to the repeat rotation …playing like a bot .
The performance for a single dps class is mid tier that at any rate anyone would pick a range over a melee .
Looking at Raiding , Majority of the top guilds runs with 3 to 4 max melee . And a warrior could provide some benefits …Same with Dk and Dh… even a feral would bring something more than a rogue . Ww mas stun or aoe stuff that could decide some phase-adds.
At the end the rogue class has been forgotten and is just a mediocre class that has just stealth …
As far as I know hunters are one of the most popular classes around. They aren’t the hardest to play either, but they are relatively squishy in comparison to other classes, which can reduce their numbers but only slightly.
Warlocks, from what I have seen, are few in number for a number of possible reasons:
-You need to swap between pets on occasion in dungeon content, and in raids you often swap talents from one boss to another.
-You have a lot of prep to do in raids. For most classes they get ressed after a wipe, they go eat feast, buff up and they are ready to go. As a warlock you have to set up a gateway if it is needed, do pet-class prep like summoning your pet, have to put soulstone on a healer, and drop healthstones for the group.
Sometimes you also have to set up a gateway during an encounter, which is personal responsibility many do not like to have. In case you forget to soulstone you can be certain that you will be called out on it.
-On occasion you also have specific tasks to do, like soaking or handling a mechanic because, generally, you are very tanky for a ranged DPS. You also have curses that on specific fights you have to maintain on the boss or add that spawns.
I think it is just a step above the comfort zone of a lot of ranged players.
As for rogues I think many do not like the theme they have, or the way they play (stealthy stabby stabby gameplay). Rogues have a big learning curve to go through due to the double resource usage on top of using stealth as well.
Outlaw is just a walking slot machine a this point.
In pvp stealth is effectively a permanent invulnerability with few noteworthy counters.
And because of that the class either flips between completely broken or nerfed to the ground.
I used to like it but I feel like they just dumped gimmick after gimmick on it and now its no longer the class I used to like.
My first character is a rogue, I’ve used to main the class for a long time… but when I tried the other classes, I thought that they were simply better. The game doesn’t revolve around stealth, stealth is currently used in a world that isn’t really meant to be a stealth game, yet you need it for combat, so it just becomes a button you have to press before every encounter, so there’s that. Only melee dps specs, little group utility, low solo potential. It leaves out so many things of the game, in the end it’s not worth it, and it’s a shame as I’ve always loved the class.
Rogue main since end of vanilla, 23 rogues atm.
In my opinion it has become a lot more complex for very little reward. I don’t personally like any of the Shadowlands covenant abilities that are in the trees and there is no button to press that feels epic. All the abilities lack visual flair, it’s just boring. Using defensives as offensive abilities also just feels bad. Stealth used to feel OP and like you’ve got an edge, now an enemy NPC just farts in your direction and you’re out of stealth. I sometimes feel the urge to break out my inner pirate but the threat of RSI stops me in my tracks.
I used to play one every expansion for at lesst one of the tiers, but now I don’t even bother.
Its powerful but its more effort stare DR’s all game than play something that is simple and also overtuned for the moment in pvp, all of the current fotm specs execute simple rotations and have high sustain dmg compared to the rest that would also take some planning to win with. In pvp rog is prolly hated cause its playstyle to control but thats also almost same with every class having increased amount of cc in DF, just not spammable stuns like rog would have.
Outlaw is impossible to play even decently without WAs or Hekili.
The Trickster and Fatebound hero specs are currently probably the worst of all hero specs design-wise. Use Feint for DPS - what the heck? And that coin roll thing will require more WAs to play around, because Blizz got too lazy to create more overlays.
Not many have what it takes to live in the shadows, but I will always respect my fellow rogues.
For me, its that I don’t like combo points.
Also since when are hunters least played?