please justify our nerfs cont...pt2

#0 - Dec. 20, 2007, 8:03 p.m.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3409893185&sid=1

The post hit 500 replies (with not a single blue), 26 pages and had over 16 THOUSAND views before it was cut off.... so I'll repost it.

Blue you've still a chance to post...!

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From Agrias

How is the Blizzard development team so short sighted that after several weeks of testing 2.3 they decide to nerf rogues even worse than they already were? It's not even been a full month since 2.3 hit live servers that you decided to nerf Hemo, which for the first time since TBC came out, is actually useful. In addition, you decide to nerf us even more by removing the Adrenaline Rush cooldown reset from Preparation? Why is this necessary?

From the other day when a certain Blue made an 'educated' post regarding the changes to hemo it was due to the reason that the "majority" of rogues were respeccing far enough into the subtlety tree to get hemo (which was incorrect anyway, more Blizzard stupidity) but then insisted that the development team does not make changes due to popularity. Double standards much?

Why is it that frost mages, who are already desirable and the most popular PVP spec, are getting ice block as a trainable ability and will be replaced by an ability that increases their damage in utility? Last I recall frost was the premier PVP mage spec, but you continue to increase their damage and utility. Also, Cold Snap refreshes all their cooldowns. Why is the rogue talent Preparation weaker than Cold Snap? Why do you continue to REMOVE utility from the rogue class?

Here is what the new Preparation will give us back:
Sprint
Evasion
Shadowstep
Vanish
Premeditation

Vanish is broken, premeditation is mediocre, sprint is merely one more temporary method of snare removal, evasion is useful against two classes, and shadowstep is a worthless 41 point talent.

Let's talk about how Adrenaline Rush's 5 minute cooldown is unwarranted now anyway. All it does is increase energy regeneration. Why are abilities like Berserker Rage and Beast Within more useful and more powerful but on a shorter cooldown than Adrenaline Rush? I could perhaps see it being warranted if it also increased the damage done by the rogue by a certain amount of made the rogue immune to CC.

Lastly, since Blizzard wants one tree for all classes to be the definitive PVP spec, please help me understand what tree that's supposed to be for the rogue.

Assassination is worthless since resilience and positional requirements on top of poison requirements makes our 41 point talent there useless.

Combat is our definitive PVE spec but for more than one arena season has been the most popular PVP spec without offering any PVP utility or abilities. Surprise Attacks is hardly useful outside of the mirror match against other rogues and possibly feral druids, which aren't popular in PVP to begin with.

Subtlety has always been in a bad shape since TBC was released, but with 2.3 you actually decided to make it viable. But less than a month later you deem that rogues became too powerful and are taking back the buffs. Eyonix , you claim that "We want there to be more subtlety rogues, and we’re working to improve the tree. One way was to give the tree more damage, through hemorrhage. Unfortunately, that didn’t really improve the tree because everyone just stopped with the AR/Prep spec." but you fail to comprehend why rogues don't go all the way down the subtlety tree.

Shadowstep is only marginally useful and not worth the sacrifice in other trees to obtain. It is a joke of a 41 point talent. For many patches you have tried to tune it and make it better but it's too little and by now, too late. The development team did not address the biggest issue with Shadowstep, which was the fact that it does not promise the rogue to land a hit after using the ability. Who cares if I can teleport behind a person when if they're moving I won't be able to land an attack anyway? Doesn't it seem ridiculous that a trainable ability like Intercept is more useful and definitively better than a 41 point talent? A few seconds of sprint seems nice, but unless shadowstep removes snares it's still not as useful as it should be. If Shadowstep would instead stun the target for 1-3 seconds I think people would be more than excited and willing to grab it.

And finally, since you decided to open up the can of worms about rogues only going down subtlety halfway and not all the way down, when can we expect Mortal Strike nerfs? After all, the only PVP spec warriors go anymore only has them going down the Arms tree to grab Mortal Strike. Moving deathwish to that tree and placing Improved Intercept there hasn't made any more warriors go full Arms for PVP. Why is that rogues get nerfed for having a viable hybrid spec but warriors, who have been dominating every bracket of Arena since Season 1, can continue to spec hybrid? Also, let's toss in SL/SL warlocks. They're hybrid, but I don't see the nerf to Soul Link anywhere. It's ridiculous that the two most overpowered and represented class in several arena brackets continue to dominate without any fixes but you nerf rogues into the ground before the season really even begins.

I anticipate your reply, or any other Blue, but I expect this to go ignored. I think I speak for the entire rogue community when I say that these changes are hardly justified based upon the comments from Eyonix. With every nerf you're making it that much easier for people to quit the game. With Wrath of the Lich King so far away, I doubt you want to be losing a large amount of your player base.

[ Post edited by Agrias ]

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and my answer to Blizzards actions / inaction. Heavy handed I'll admit but I've cast my dice.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3547795113&sid=1&pageNo=1

posting on borrowed time,

Remy

*Edited out the name in the title. Please refrain from using names, blue or Blizzard in titles. -Nethaera

Nethaera

#58 - Dec. 21, 2007, 6:42 p.m.

It's understandable that you want more answers to many questions. We do what we can to answer. Sometimes we just don't have the answers you want and sometimes we need to wait on some other answers as more developments are worked on.

We definitely are watching and listening to what everyone has been saying. Once we have any new information that we can share, we will. We've seen the post you referenced, we just don't have anything to add to it right now.

Nethaera

#64 - Dec. 21, 2007, 6:50 p.m.

Q u o t e:

In other words: LOL MY AVATAR IS A DANCING SNOW MAN GUYZ!!!

Your self-contained, linguistic translator and shredding machine seems to be on the fritz. I'd get that looked at.

We are keeping tabs on all of the discussion, but there isn't any new information that we can share at this point in time. We will do our best to keep everyone as informed as possible as further changes are implemented.

Nethaera

#88 - Dec. 21, 2007, 7:11 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Neth, it'd be really great if Kalgan would come tell us why he and the other devs think the 2.3 version of Hemo is so overpowered. Rogues aren't exactly dominating arenas atm, especially compared to warriors, druids, and locks. It's been this way for a while, Kalgan acknowledged it at BlizzCon. Why can't rogues have good burst damage and decent mobility?

I understand your concern. With the holidays, it's unlikely we're going to have anything more for a short bit, but we'll work toward doing what we can to get more information out as we can. We do have a lot of things in the works, and I do know that we want to make subtlety a better utility tree overall. More specifics, I couldn't give you right now. We also want to maintain some flexibility in how people spec or feel they should spec so we're doing what we can to achieve a balance between them.

Nethaera

#107 - Dec. 21, 2007, 7:21 p.m.

Q u o t e:
It's funny how they sent Neth to answer instead of Eyonix.

No one "sent" me. I came by just so I could at least let people know we're aware of the discussions going on, that we're still reading, and that if and when we have more information to share, we will.

You can appreciate the sentiment as much or as little as you like, but we'll keep doing what we can for everyone either way. ;)

Nethaera

#147 - Dec. 21, 2007, 7:51 p.m.

Q u o t e:

<shrug>

That's fine, I'm just saying, that's nothing we didn't already know. Obviously, if you have more information that's ready to go public, we will hear about it, whether or not you decide to announce it to the rogue community.

As for as keeping track of the discussions here, while I can't prove one way or another what you have and haven't read, there's been ample proof that the rogue forums are... shall we say, less frequently moderated than most. I'm afraid most of us are going to see claims that you're reading this as empty placating comments.

I'm not really ripping on you or any of the other CMs really. Despite Eyonix's pithy comments toward rogues in general, I don't hold him any ill will. I'm just stating the facts about how your comments are going to be received. Also, my remarks about lack of useful substance in them is... well I guess I'm just not the kind of person who appreciates empty courtesy just for the sake of saying something, even when you really have nothing to say.

I can understand your feeling. I know it seems like empty courtesy to you, but to others, it does hold more weight to be acknowledged for what they think and feel on a subject even if there isn't more to it than that. We walk the line between saying too little and saying nothing at all at times. Unfortunately, we will never satisfy everyone with our answers, but that won't stop us from doing the best we can.

Nethaera

#180 - Dec. 21, 2007, 8:21 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Oh btw Nethaera, since you're here and I posted in general and pvp about this maybe you can answer a question although it's "offtopic". Are there any plans in the near future to help reduce the 2v2 arena queue times. Cause that's the main bracket I play with on my rogue and the queue's are upwards of 15 minutes each on Cyclone battlegroup.

I'm not sure on other battlegroups but this was at 12 a.m. server. I don't know a time where there's substantially less people on but it makes it hard to get games in when each one takes so long to get to.

No. Nothing on the 2v2 bracket queues right now. I know we're aware of the concerns for this, but I don't have more to offer than that at this time. In general, we've been encouraging people to spread out their matches a bit more rather than all trying to do them at once. I can't comment on your particular battlegroup, however.

Nethaera

#202 - Dec. 21, 2007, 8:48 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Cool, thanks for the reply. And disregard the nerdy forum haters, everyone loves candles.

Not everyone loves candles. There are still many waxists in the world. :(

Nethaera

#210 - Dec. 21, 2007, 8:53 p.m.

Q u o t e:
I'd figure candles and snowmen would be arch-enemies.

We've called a truce for the holiday.

Nethaera

#221 - Dec. 21, 2007, 9:09 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Response to my post? =(
You make me feel like you don't care Neth.

I care! I just can't respond to every post.

Just keep the candle snuffers away!

Nethaera

#232 - Dec. 21, 2007, 9:26 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Looks like more blue posts evading the topic just enough to get some people to kiss their rears for even responding, so they can pretend that the thread is too long to go through to find and address posts like this one here. I appreciate you actually responding, but you really have wondered off-topic, do you know the dev's justifications for pigeon-holding us back into combat, and combat only? If so, can you tell us?

There is no intent to pigeon-hole anyone into any particular spec. I know that seems hard to believe given some of the psychology of the forums. The intent is actually to find ways for players to be able to diversify more and still find the playstyle that is the most successful for them.

I'm not attempting to use evade on the topic (my cooldown might be down, give me five minutes (joke!)). I'm here to give you what I can, which while it may not be much, is just a way for me to let you all know we are still around. While we're going into the holidays, we may be a bit quieter, but that doesn't mean we don't carry all of these thoughts and ideas around with us.

Nethaera

#242 - Dec. 21, 2007, 9:37 p.m.

Q u o t e:

then why did Eyonix say that the reason they were doing this was to end up with more deep sub rogues? That IMO, is someone telling me what to spec. You don't like what someone did so you changed the stuff around so that they play the way you want.

I'm just saying is all.

It's not about pigeon-holing. It's about enticing people to find alternate specs to better diversify. Most arguments you see come from people wanting one spec or another to be viable. We'd like them to all have a degree of viability and the best way to see that happen is to find ways to encourage people to spec in different ways.

Nethaera

#304 - Dec. 21, 2007, 11:14 p.m.

Q u o t e:

LOL. It's called "Evasion," and rank 1 is trainable at level 8. You are just overflowing with experience with the class, aren't you?

I also said I had a trinket without any cooldown on a Druid thread. It was meant as an obvious tongue in cheek joke. ;) Someone accused me of evading so I kept the term as is. I'm merely toying with words and am quite aware of the skill Evasion and its use. You can't actually use the skill on the forums, only in game after all.