Why rogue is the least played class

Community General Discussion
41

The class is not the issue with that. It’s the lack of race options. Evoker only has one.

On topic and from a pvp perspective, Rogues are complicated in the current way of pvp as you said and if someone doesn’t know how to play with the Rogue, it will be a bad game.

Outside of Sub burst, they’re mostly just cc bots. Same with Assa. Outlaw does not exist since it’s a poor man’s Sub and needs a rework.

I think one of the reasons Rogue are not that popular is because they level quite slow as well compared to other classes, plus they way they play changes completely at max level.

Rogues have a great toolkit but requires quite allot of thinking to use it to its max potential and there are classes/specs that can do that easier.

Then ofc the theme of it has to appeal to you.

1 Like
42

I agree, evoker is the modern version of caster and can deal with the melees hyper mobility and the amount of cc and kicks easily. If it had more playable races than lizard I would definitely play it.

And all current pvp is soloq sadly so random yolo teams with zero coordination messing his stun drs and deny his saps and break his blinds. Design looks outdated aswell compared to dh like some mentioned, new heros just seem more suitable in modern. You got a game full dots on everyone and we have rogue whose conditions are still tied with stealth, we got game full of aoe roots and stuns and fears and its rooted and kited all game. Not so much problem for new heros designs.

43

Maybe but there is just one playable spec basically.

Even for pvp you probably can’t even play aug. For m+ as someone mentioned, the specs that require brain are not popular, so pres is falls into that (as the only healer that is hard to play)

44

that was one impressive wall pof text which i didnt read :slight_smile:

for me rogue is just not fun to play in wow.

it would require entire rework and for blizzard to make it fun to play for me to play it

that was my TED talk :slight_smile:

45

Well I can only speak for myself and I always liked rogue the sneaking around the pickpocketing it’s all so cool and when titan grip came and warriors used one handed weapons less and less to the point where we are now rogues became even more attractive to me.

Buuuut I never seriously played one.
And the one reason for that is energy.
I just can’t deal with that. I don’t like to have a resource I simply have to wait for it to come back.
If I had atleast one ability I could spam while I pool my energy I would not feel like I’m out of ammo.
For the same reason I don’t play feral or monk either.

And another thing I don’t like right now is outlaw.
I liked combat cause it was that more warrior like bruiser type that still had his stealth but it didn’t felt like you had to stealth and had to vanish mid combat for that big crit.
Also the whole pirate thing with the gun?
Would have been cooler if it was a separate spec that is all about pistols like a ranged rogue.

If I could get a combat rogue that fulfills that bruiser like swift fighter type fantasy without the guns and like I said atleast one ability to use while pooling energy I would probably main rogue right away

4 Likes
46

Sorry for that, I can only reply once until someone else replies, so my replies are big. I want everyone to be able to see the full picture of the rogue nerfs throughout the expansions. And WoW really has a lot of expansions where they nerf rogues)

It’s simply just all downhill from Cata. Except moving combo points to player from target, there wasn’t a single significant buff since then. But there were a lot of nerfs and things that just break everything. You’re free to name any other classes that were consistently nerfed like this, could be a fun read.

A druid with shadowmeld and a hunter were mentioned more as a joke in terms of vanish and I’m glad blizz at least didn’t give them proper vanish yet.

Those are both 2-minute cooldowns and with the amount of dots there are, it really is a single get out of jail card, not two separate ones. Also, a lot of the times you really have to use cloak separately to survive or even offensively, which is kind of risky but powerful move that can win you games sometimes. But that too gets diminished as people get more and more CC.

I think they even said they were planning something like that for all classes. It will reduce the friction for new players, but I don’t think it will improve the situation much. Even in this thread multiple people mentioned how they leveled rogue and then dropped.

Yes, the game around rogue is what breaks rogue even more than the changes to the class itself, that’s what I’m saying this whole time. But they still nerfed the hell out of its toolkit which was a final nail. The solution can’t be to make rogue more zug-zug though, that will worsen the situation even more. They already started going this route by nerfing the CC and it’s horrible now. That’s when even monk became more popular.

People who don’t play rogue but not in PvP or who play PvP but not on rogue may underestimate how important the nerf was when Kidney and Cheap shot started sharing the DR. It’s like night and day. Before it was rogue, after - a worse monk/warrior/dh. That was mid shadowlands AFAIK. And then they kill blind as well, by making it 5 seconds instead of 8. Those two changes alone killed the interest of at least half the rogues in PvP I guarantee it.

upd: I forgot another positive change since Cata - combat got redesigned and even if you don’t like outlaw, you gotta agree that grappling hook is kinda nice (even though it should allow to move up much better).

47

The rogue class design is simply stuck in the past. Look at how Deathmark brings back an old anti target switch mechanic that emulates how combo points were not transferable between enemies. The class simply needs someone in charge with a vision, and who understands the class fantasy. Give rogue the hunter/paladin treatment.

And while we are at it, time to make Outlaw a tank spec!

1 Like
48

what in the hell even is this?

also, rouge hard

49

100%

before:
rogue hit guy from back
guy feel dizzy
guy go sleep

now:
rogue hit guy from back
guy not feel dizzy
guy hit rogue
rogue go sleep

3 Likes
50

Heheheh

51

They could do that in the spec tree. Provide a choice node in the middle of the tree, one choice buffs your melee dw: the other choice buffs a melee mh with pistol oh.

Then they could lean into in the rest of the tree. Go down the left side for nodes that buff dw melee: or go right side to buff your pistol abilities.

The main problems with outlaw imo are down to a lack of imagination, which has left us with this ‘you can be any type of outlaw you like, as long as it’s a pirate’ situation.

1 Like
52

I would love a mageblade class, but can’t see it happening. Best I can hope for is a watered down hero spec version.

53

Good ideas.
I would love to lean into either melee, dual wield, or pistoleering.
But it might be a bit similar to old wow. Idk, I still like it.

1 Like
54

It’s not really an issue for subtlety build. If I could get my gear to have zero haste, I would be happy! If energy does become even a small issue, then there are vigor and thistle tea build options to choose from.

The main issue in longer fights is waiting for shadowdance to come off cooldown mid fight. Then you are just sitting there doing wet noodle damage, waiting for it all to come together so you can start doing real damage again. But even then it is still rare to not have something to hit every gcd.

55

Kinda wish all three rogue specs had their own truly unique identity. Like:

  • Stabby dagger spec with choice between dots and big finishers
  • Brawler dodge tank spec, hitting hard with maces, swords and axes
  • Midrange pistolero spec that kites with snares and teleports around
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56

Maybe it’s just me.
Maybe I’m not compatible with energy classes.
I struggle with feral and ww too

2 Likes
57

Exactly. Energy is not really a problem, for sub at least. Yes, you have to wait a little bit, but it’s not the end of the world. The problem with sub damage is that outside of shadow dance it’s not even tank damage, it’s more like healer damage. It’s possible to have shadow dance more often than every minute if you don’t have to do a lot of running / sitting in CC, but that design where abilities don’t do damage outside of cooldowns is not fun. Auto attacks don’t do damage. Poisons don’t do damage. Backstab doesn’t do damage. And even evis doesn’t do damage. All damage is only under shadow dance. This is so stupid.

Here’s the details from my first Dimensius kill (I’m not a perfect sub, but you can go check some logs and will see more or less a similar picture):
18.9% Eviscerate (160k min hit, 6m max crit, 69 casts)
17.8% Secret Technique (373k min hit, 6.6m max crit, 16 casts)
11.6% Coup de Grace (218k min hit, 6.5m max crit)
7.5% Unseen Blade (430k min hit, 1.5m max crit)
7.4% Rupture (101k min hit, 1.4m max crit) – min crit is 50k, how?
7.1% Shadow Blades
6.7% Shadow Strike (245k min hit, 2.1m max crit, 56 casts)
5.8% Cloak (1.05m min hit, 3.9m max crit) – again, min crit is 21k?
4.7% Auto attack (19k min hit, 225k max crit)
2.6% Suffocating Shadows
2.5% Backstab (78k min hit, 394k max crit, 104 casts)
2.4% Nimble Flurry
1.6% Flagellation
0.9% Bubbling Wax
0.9% Instant Poison
0.1% Undead racial

So poisons literally do nothing for sub damage. And auto attacks are ~5%. But backstab, despite being the most used ability, is 2.5%…

And for evis, just tested on the dummy for clarity of the experiment - only max cp, no cooldowns - average is about 500k.

681 ilvl, unbuffed, definitely not the most optimized gear

The 714 cloak alone does more damage than everything else sub has without cooldowns. It’s literally #1 on details. This is just ridiculous.

2 Likes
58

So that’s why that rogue in bg did zero, zero, zero… bam 60%! It felt exactly like that, facing off 1v1. I’m terribly noob and if I wasn’t I don’t think I would’ve died to that. But I got isolated and slain and the rogue was the main threat, but he didn’t even finish me I think, cause I got flanked meanwhile. Took so long for him to do any damage.

59

Random input (I’m not a biggie on rogues so I have not much to say on the topic in broad); But - There is an addon out there to bring back old rogue sounds.
Its really much better for say cheap shot etc, feels more impactful.

https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/classic-rogue-sounds
60

for pvp i can say these are the reasons/

1 its very hard to play.
2 some of its spells are useless for modern wow.

3 there is no balance for the damage done. my point is that its too high or its too low for rog class.

4 its very very complicated.