Today’s post is more on commentary (and maybe a little QQ) than anything else. This article on WoW Insider by Eliah Hecht got me thinking about Rogues and the state of the class. I already touched a bit on the subject back when dual specs came to light by saying how it has less of an impact for pure DPS classes.
First of all, the idea of giving Bloodlust to Rogues (or coming up with a new or redesigned ability that will give a similar benefit) is great, but the article itself highlights a main weakness of the class: the lack of utility. Let’s enumerate the pure DPS classes: Mages have caster buffs, tables and portals. Warlocks have soulstones, summoning stones and soul wells. At least Hunters have their aspects. They’re not the greatest utility abilities by a long shot but at least they have one. Rogues have what? Tricks of the Trade? My proposal here is to provide a new ability instead, something that’s more in line with the class: a raid-wide buff that adds poison damage (or at least a chance to add it) to physical damage. Again, it’s just an idea. I’m sure that it will upset the delicate PvP balance that Blizzard is maintaining so I don’t expect anything to come out of it.
Another thing that’s been nagging me for the past two weeks is this question: why bring a Rogue to a raid? The question came from the fight with Kel’Thuzad and how melee DPS deals with it. If you don’t know about positioning for melee for that fight, here it is: KT’s freeze spell affects its target plus anyone within ten yards. To get around this, melee classes form a triangle around KT, with the main tank taking one corner and the other melee take one of the remaining two. The idea is to split up then stack on top of each other to minimize the damage and, more importantly, the freeze’s range. Because of this mechanic, it makes it difficult to join PUGs because almost all of them look for ranged DPS. I’d imagine that for the KT fight, the maximum melee DPS that you can bring is four. Since Rogues are the only pure DPS melee class, they offer the least value in terms of flexibility. So, why bring one to a raid?
by Meldanick, on May 7 2009 @ 4:45 am
It isn’t much but interrupting KT single target frost bolt with a Kick is another thing Rogues do to help in that fight.
by Chronic, on May 7 2009 @ 8:55 am
Flexibility is very overrated. Why bring a rogue to a raid?
Because rogues do good damage. Because people in your guild want to play rogues and they’re good at what they do, so there’s no particular reason not to bring them along.
Rogues can provide one of two mandatory raid debuffs - either the heart of the crusader equivalent in assassination, or the blood frenzy equivalent in combat. They do top-tier trash and boss DPS, and ToTT provides an excellent threat buffer or raid dps increase.
But: NOBODY is essential any more. That’s exactly the point of “bring the player not the class”. I can’t give you any reasons why you MUST take a rogue to your raid, but I don’t think you can give me any compelling reasons why I MUST NOT.
(I think the most melee we ever had on KT was 8. I can see why it might be a problem in a terrible pug, but everything is a problem in a terrible pug).
by Chronic, on May 7 2009 @ 8:57 am
Your theme ate my paragraphs
by Blackfury, on May 7 2009 @ 3:31 pm
I’m thinking of a rogue that can provide raidwide buffs such as:
- Improved parry and dodge rating (more like pally’s kings, but specifically for parry and dodge).
- Increase hit rating and expertise (melee rejoice!)
Or, raiding abilities such as:
- In-combat blind, rendering boss melee attacks to miss 100% for x number of seconds.
- More interrupts.
Or.. we just have to live with the fact that Rogues have more utility in PVP.
by zeroinitiate, on May 7 2009 @ 10:07 pm
@Meldanick
Thank you for reminding me about that. Yes, a Rogue’s kick eases the pain of healing a bit. A word of warning to my fellow Rogues though: make sure that you don’t lose track of fissures while interrupting. I actually died during one encounter because I was so busy watching KT’s cast bar that I failed to notice the fissure below me. I blame DBM for not displaying a more obvious warning. LOL.
@Chronic
Sorry about the theme. My site admin is too busy to fix it at the moment. And before you ask, no, I can’t fire him because technically I’m not paying him anything either. LOL. I agree on all of your comments, particularly with the usefulness of ToTT. I forgot to mention this in the original post, but another reason behind the question is because Rogues are the least played class at level 80 (according to the WoW Census link). I’m wondering why that’s the case.
@Blackfury
Solid suggestions as always. I like the hit and expertise buffs in particular. And about PvP, I’m thinking that this is the main reason why Blizzard isn’t doing a lot of changes with the class. Everybody hates us already because of all the stunlocking, so giving us more benefits will upset the PvP “balance”.
by Mikhael, on May 10 2009 @ 7:27 pm
Ah, utility. I love everything about being a rogue save for that one thing. I’m fortunate enough to be in a casual raiding guild that will slot me when they want DPS and will put up with my failure to provide a nice table, a nice summon or traps. PUGs, though? Not likely.
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It isn’t even like we do *THAT* much more damage. Even Blizz admits that they wanted the hybrids to be tuned to be just a little behind us. The better-in-PvP sop isn’t doing me much good, either, because I simply don’t do it.
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Ah well. I still get to play the most fun class.