Rogues - The PvE Purpose thread.

#0 - July 25, 2007, 10:35 p.m.

Ok, this post is intended to be a quick analysis of the Rogue class, it's strengths weaknesses, and all around purpose in PvE.

It's a question, mainly for the CMs. But I was wondering. Are there any rogue changes planned in the close future? For the short term, I am concerned by our actually usefulness to a raid. Recently (and by this I mean the last 3-4 patches) there have been many modifications to other classes "off-specs" such as the Shaman's endless rage or spell crit totem, the buffs from druid forms, the shadow-priest mana-regen, the hunters ferocious inspiration.

Now if we consider all of these changes in their own rights, they are indeed a fantastic addition to the game. They allow a class to play almost any spec it wishes and still provide useful benefits to the raid. This prevents them from being excluded from raiding, or mini-mised within guilds. As a current raid leader and guild master it pains me to realise that if I really want the absolutely maximum strength for my raid, I should actually exclude myself as there is no major advantage to bringing a rogue.

Let's consider the classes and what they bring to the raid:

Warlock - Health-stones, Very high damage output, Stamina buffs, Banish, Multiple curses (shadows/elements/recklessness/weakness/etc)
Mage - Very High damage output,Arcane Brilliance, Detect Magic, Dampen/Amplify magic, Polymorph, Water/Food.
Hunter - All: Traps, High Damage, Crowd control of kitable mobs. Marksmanship: Trueshot Aura, Improved hunter's mark. Beast Mastery: Ferocious Inspiration. Survival: Expose Weakness.
Warrior - Protection: Tanking. Fury: Very Strong damage output. Arms: Mortal strike debuff, Blood Frenzy (+4% melee damage.)
Druid - All: Innervate, Battle Res, Mark of the Wild, Thorns, Faerie Fire. Feral: +5% crit to party members, very decent tanking, decent damage. Restoration: Incredible Healing, +healing to party members. Moonkin: Very decent damage, +5% spell crit, Insect Swarm.
Priest - Holy: Stamina buff, Very effective healing +spirit. Shadow: Very high dps, +mana regen, +hp regen, +10% shadow damage debuff.
Paladin - All: Buffs/Auras. Prot: Effective tanking. Holy: Effective Healing. Retri: Ok damage, judgement refreshing, +hit buff.
Shamans - Totem buffs, stormstrike debuff, unleashed rage, mana tide totems, decent healing, decent damage.

And finally, Rogue: Very high damage output.... poisons(assuming the mob is not immume), sap (arguably the worst cc, along with fear)

Now I believe it was at the beginning of the burning crusade where rogue damage was "tweaked" and slightly reduced. This boggled me to be honest. Rogues take a lot more healing than ranged classes due to being in melee, they also bring nothing to the raid besides dps. But pre-TBC they brought a hell of a lot of damage and it was more than worth the extra healing require. Ever since the tweak it has been very rare for me to see a rogue consistantly topping damage dealt. They are up in the top 3-5 no doubt, but so are Warlocks/Mages. So, I cannot see why Rogues should be there.

Ok, now as a raid leader. Please tell me why I should take a rogue over say, a second warlock? or shadow-priest? or Shaman? Or in fact, any other class?

At the moment, I cannot find a reason why I would bother. They die easily due to wearing leather, they do a lot of damage, they are in melee range (thus requiring more healing.)

So three questions in total. One, why take a rogue to raid over another equally high dps class? Two, are there any planned changes to the rogue class you can tell us about? Three, should I just get my 64 mage to 70 and use that as my main class?

P.S - Please if I've missed anything, or got something drastically wrong, don't flame me, just let me know in a clear concise post and I will edit it.

N.B - This was sparked off by seeing multiple screen shots of different boss kills, with a grand total of 0 Rogues present in the raid.

Vaneras

#28 - July 26, 2007, 6:21 p.m.

I don't have much to say really, but I think that you made a nice and well written post Split.

I think this part in particular shows the very essence of this discussion:

Q u o t e:
They allow a class to play almost any spec it wishes and still provide useful benefits to the raid. This prevents them from being excluded from raiding, or mini-mised within guilds. As a current raid leader and guild master it pains me to realise that if I really want the absolutely maximum strength for my raid, I should actually exclude myself as there is no major advantage to bringing a rogue.

In the old days before Burning Crusade, the class roles were much more defined than they are today. In those days pigeon-holing of classes were very common when raiding, and if players wanted to raid and get into good raiding guilds, then they were often "forced" to use certain cookie-cutter specs to fulfill their roles for DPS'ing, Tanking or Healing. This did make raids easier to organize to a certain extent, and pure classes in particular were always needed and guaranteed a raid-spot, whereas hybrid classes were often undesirable unless they re-specced into certain talent builds. Many, many players were unhappy about this fact, because they couldn't play their class the way they really wanted, and that was even true for some pure classes as well like Priests and Warriors, who were very often excluded from raids unless they were specced purely for Healing or Tanking respectively.

Then came the Burning Crusade where things changed a lot. The clear class role definitions became more blurred in order to allow for more different class and talent build combinations when raiding, but many players were still locked in the old pigeon-holing cookie-cutter mindset, which is somewhat still dominant among many today. Since many classes can now share roles, which were virtually unheard of before the Burning Crusade, many previously raid-spot-guaranteed classes now seek confirmation of still being wanted. This particular shines through when we see the increase in demands for class role definitions and clarification of unique abilities that only certain classes can bring to raids.

The questions asked in this thread, which I quote below, is a clear example of this:

Q u o t e:
One, why take a rogue to raid over another equally high dps class?

The answer to this question is in the eyes of the beholder, and the answer will be different depending on who you ask. I would say this: If you want a class with high DPS and CC abilities, then why not bring a Rogue? The Rogue will do a great job DPS'ing, and physical DPS is often an advantage over Magic and Mana dependent DPS. The Rogue CC abilities are very often extremely useful.

Are other DPS classes more useful than Rogues? Yes and No, depends on the situation and the mindset of players really. No classes will be able to be the best at fulfilling their primary role in every situation.

Q u o t e:
Two, are there any planned changes to the rogue class you can tell us about?

There is not much we can tell you at this moment in time, but we will keep you updated when new information becomes available to us. The most recent feedback we got from the developers was that they were looking into Rogues and their performance in the Arenas, but we have no specific details available that we can share with you at this time.

Q u o t e:
Three, should I just get my 64 mage to 70 and use that as my main class?

That is up to you really. If you are not happy playing your Rogue and you have more fun playing your Mage, then I would think the answer is obvious.

Vaneras

#301 - Aug. 2, 2007, 3:31 p.m.

Hmm... Looks like this thread reached it's posting limit quite early :-(

Increased it to allow for more posts, so post away everybody :-)