#0 - April 16, 2007, 8:54 p.m.
The Rogue class is supposed to be a class of stealth, caution, preparedness, and being opportunistic, in my opinion anyway. Let's see how things have changed.
1) POISONS - Rogues apparently kept forgetting to make sure their weapons had poison on them before going into stealth. So Blizzard made this easier for them by allowing them to apply poisons in stealth.
2) DETECT TRAPS - Rogues apparently kept forgetting to make sure that they had Detect Traps, an ability that lets them see Traps clear as day at any distance, turned on whenever they decided to attack a Hunter and would clumsily step right into the traps. So Blizzard, wanting to give rogues some help, rather than just making Detect Traps have a longer duration, decided to make it a passive ability that always on all the time. Unfortunately...some rogues are so helplessly clumsy, they still step right into a trap. I still have to remember to turn on Track Hidden (as little help as it is) whenever I know a Rogue is nearby. Where's my passive stealth detection? Oh wait, Rogues got that in a passive talent now. That makes sense.
3) HUNTER'S MARK - Even though a player can see farther than 100 yards away, Rogues still managed to be so reckless and to allow Hunters to cast Hunter's Mark on them by approaching said Hunter unstealthed until they closed in a bit more, resulting in the Rogue being completely unable to get the preemptive attack on the Hunter for 2 minutes....Of course...if the Rogue got marked, they could always just run away and return when the Mark is faded and try to approach the Hunter more cautiously as soon as the Rogue sees the Hunter....Instead, Blizzard not only made Vanish remove Hunter's Mark, but they also gave every Rogue a trainable ability that can remove Hunter's Mark (and numerous other debuffs) every 1 minute which is only half the duration of Hunter's Mark itself. So even if a Hunter managed to get a Hunter's Mark to stick on a rogue with Vanish and CoS on cooldown, it still won't even last a full duration.
4) DEADLY THROW - Apparently, despite being able to get pre-emptive attacks on unsuspecting people, stunlocking them for long periods of time, disabling people with Gouge and Blind, greatly slowing peoples' movement speed with Crippling Poison, and being able to break any kind of snare applied to them with numerous abilities (Vanish, CoS, Imp Sprint), Rogues still had trouble keeping people in Melee range for a reasonable amount of time, so Blizzard gave them an instant cast ranged attack that not only slows people, but does a decent amount of damage too.
5) DISARM TRAPS - Why disarm freeze traps when you can lawlerzwalk right over them and resist it with a trainable ability every 1 minute? Also, the radius of traps has been reduced.
6) ENTRAPMENT - Hunters found Freeze Trap to be unreliable against Rogues now with the introduction of Cloak of Shadows, so Hunters started throwing Rogues a curve ball by throwing down an Entrapment powered Frost Trap instead of Freeze Traps, and the Rogues, arrogant as ever, would turn on CoS and walk right into it except it to be Freeze Trap but instead they got a slow effect that they couldn't resist and sometimes they got completely immobilized by it. This was greatly upsetting to Rogues because it meant that they had to be careful of traps again, despite the fact that Freeze Traps and Frost Traps do actually look different if a Rogue takes the time to look at them. So to make it easier for Rogues, Blizzard reduced the max duration of Etrapment to 4 seconds and gave it diminishing returns.
7) FLARE - Rogues were annoyed by accidentally walking into a flare and being removed from Stealth because they failed to survey their surroundings for signs of a flare by looking for the little glowing ball on the ground. So Blizzard made flare so bright as to be about as noticeable as a billboard.
8) FLARE, PART II - Rogues were still greatly dismayed by the fact that they sometimes had to navigate around 2 very brightly lit flares if they decided to go within 30 yards of a Hunter who was aware of their presence. It was also greatly angering to them that a Hunter who prepared himself for Rogue ambush by flaring the area immediately surrounding his person would cause Rogues to lose the opportunity to Cheap Shot or Sap the Hunter while he remained in the flared area. So in response to the Rogues cry of help, Blizzard made it so absolutely only 1 area could be flared at any 1 time by a single Hunter, and gave the Rogues the option to extend the range of Sap by 4 yards, bringing it to a total of a 9 yard range, which means Hunters can probably be sapped by a Rogue without losing stealth even while standing directly in the center of their flare, and then the Rogue can wait for flare to fade, and then Cheap Shot the still sapped Hunter, completely negating all the defenses the Hunter had prepared.
Rogues keep losing all their consequences for their clumsiness and lack of foresight while playing a class that SHOULD REQUIRE caution and foresight. Hunters keep thinking of new and smarter ways to combat Rogues and adapting those new strategies into our battles against them, only to have those too nerfed. When will Blizzard simply tell Rogues "No. You'll just have to adapt and be more careful." instead of punishing us for being clever, paranoid, and constantly aware of our surroundings and successfully defending ourselves against the likes of Rogues? By the looks of things....Never. Rogues will always get what they want and their class will just keep becoming easier while us Hunter will always be constantly on the defensive and constantly coming up with new ways to combat Rogues as our old ways are constantly nerfed.
And yes, I do have a 70 Hunter. If anyone has anymore things that I forgot to mention, please feel free to reply and add your own historical event.
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i was under the impression the hunter was the tooled up anti rogue. we were the hunter and they were our prey, but thanks to the oceans of nub tears washing away the foundations of developer solidarity (pvp qq) once again the fundamentals of the game are being rewritten.
is seije correct? are rogues in the most general sense cry babies? i know a lot of great rogues, but i also have met a lot of stupid ones. its the not so smart ones who tend to whine. have these retarded whiners somehow infultrated blizzard?
