Comments on: Dropped off the grid

By: Dinaer

Dinaer — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:26:37 +0000

I’m going to write a blog post about changing to a rogue playstyle, and I’m going to quote a bit from your post here, BBB. Hope you don’t mind.

By: Stonedrake

Stonedrake — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:26:00 +0000

Hey, my only complaint about rogues is all the Elemental Awesome built into the class that blizzard completely ignores until Icecrown. Bring the Player Not the Class only made it worse. Tesh sort of addressed the same thing. Here we are, a class with trap detection and removal, pick pocketing and lock picking — and these almost never see use. When is the last time it was of value to have a rogue to pick the lock on a door? Shortcutting part of BRD? Maybe dodging the reconstruction of the Scholomance Key? Oh wait! Unlocking the back door of Stratholme (incidentallly, this goes out for the Blacksmiths and Engineers too. They have their own means of dealing with locks, Blizz, and you give them nearly no reason to use them). Removing traps? the first trap I ever had to handle anywhere was in Icecrown. Pick pocketing? Ok, that’s a good one for some change and the occasional epic that you’ll throw away pretty fast anyway. I advocate creating instances that allow a rogue to give his group an easier path (unlocking a door, disarming a nasty trap, or lifting a Macguffin from a mob’s pocket).

All of that aside, I still don’t get why people think that rogues are sub-par for solo PvE content. No, you can’t wade into a group of ten mobs and take them all on like you were wearing plate. A rogues strength is turning that 10-pull into two 5-pulls, then turning one 5-pull into a pair of 2-pulls with a sapped mob in the middle.

By: Feorfin

Feorfin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:04:28 +0000

My main is a rogue so I understand your feelings. Even feral kitties can wipe out groups of mobs with little worry. Rogues, however, are soft as grapes so the mentality is don’t get hit and kill everything fast. I very much agree with Stonedrake that rogue solo play is about pace and set up. You can’t generally just wade in and outlast a large pull like you can with a druid. There are some helpfull talents that can boost dodge and increase survivability when you’re soloing so if you plan to solo alot of older content you might want to consider a secondary spec specifically for that. Also, proper use of cooldowns can allow you to wade through large packs of mobs about every 2 minutes. I don’t know what spec you are, but combat has some of the better solo talents. As soon as you make 80 try hitting Evasion, Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush then spam away at Fan of Knives and watch the mayhem ensue.

By: niceas

niceas — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:34:00 +0000

To the person who said that warlocks and mages look in askance at Shaman and some of the other ‘hybrid’ classes?

Using shaman as an example was a BAD example. When they hit the end-game content, Shaman (Enh, Ele) scale the worst on DPS – to the point of being effectively the bottom of the totempole. When I can trot out my undergeared warlock and do more DPS than my 4 piece T10 ele shaman, something is wrong with the scaling.

Sorry – this is just a pet peeve of mine.

By: Aggrazel

Aggrazel — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:23:35 +0000

@Callyx – Find a friend to help.

The thing is while the Rogue class is weaker in PvE than most, its stronger in PvP than most. So if you aren’t PvPing as a rogue, you might have more success as a warrior or paladin. The beauty of the rogue class is being able to pick your fights, and control them. Like I say, the rogue is about technique more than any other class I’ve played.

By: Callyx

Callyx — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:04:06 +0000

I really want to side with the rogue proponents on this comment board. There’s only one problem..
In the world of warcraft.. many if not most mobs worth killing are not stunnable or slowable.
An honest question here from a non-rogue.. what is it you do, in those circumstances?

By: Stonedrake

Stonedrake — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:54:06 +0000

I also just read Darth Solo’s piece about rogues and I’ll add a comment about it here, since it also ties in with BBBs roguery. Rogues in solo PvE — especially whilst levelling — are about tempo. The game becomes something of a symphony of destruction if you’re doing it right. You set up that first pull in such a way that you can reduce the numbers to just one or two, burn them down and move on. You’re still carrying over Slice and Dice into the next fight, as well as Remorseless Attacks. You move from mob to mob and group to group, trying to keep Slice going at all times.

Yes. You’re in leather and you’re going to take damage. You don’t care. You are a remorseless, focused killing machine. You ride that green bar DOWN. As long as the mobs green bars go down faster, you win. Keep it up. Rock that killing beat on and on. When you’re about to die… vanish and go somewhere to bandage or eat. Rogues are so completely mechanical that when you go into a fight against a given mob, you should already know how many of them you can kill before you need to rest. If you follow the levellers conventional wisdom and only do quests you out-level a bit, by the time you have to rest, your cooldowns will be up anyway.

As I mentioned before, this gets even better in Cataclsym. As Anne Stickney has said repeatedly: Recuperate makes you an unkillable little god of death.

By: Stonedrake

Stonedrake — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:23:56 +0000

Rogues are excellent at soloing PvE content — especially at 80.

1. Yes, we currently lack self healing, but that exact situation is addressed in Cataclysm with Recuperate. One way to address it now, though is to be an alchemist/herbalist. Lifeblood is a great self-heal, and it’s off the GCD. Throw in an Endless Healing Potion or pots and Mixology…

2. The loveliest thing about modern rogues in solo PvE is that Sap works on so many more things than it used to. It’s so much easier to peel apart groups than it used to be. In a five pull, often you can sap the guy in the middle and just pull two back out of range.

3. It gets easier at 80 when you have Fan of Knives.

4. Bosses are where you suffer from the lack of healing but that’s mitigated by the unholy damage you can unleash. Any Northrend geared rogue should be able to out-race the boss DPS wise these days. Again, this get’s better at 80 when you get access to some tier gear.

By: Kit

Kit — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:18:02 +0000

BBB, you know what your post speaks to, more than class balance? Encounter scalability. If every encounter were scalable, it wouldn’t matter if you were solo or if your group were 100-strong. No more struggling to fill 10- or 25-man raids. Got 7 people? Go for it! the challenge level and amount of loot scale. 17? 73? Just you and your RAF 2-box “friend”? No problem. And it guarantees that anyone who wants to see content can see content. This, more than any class changes, would level the playing field for everyone.

By: Darth Solo

Darth Solo — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:06:46 +0000

I hear you. I had the same problems with my rogue and ended up parking him at level 75 months ago. Due to lack of character slots he will become my new bank alt come Cataclysm. In fact I wrote a post about how disenchanted I became with the rogue class > Rogues are useless. This has truly been the most difficult class to level and I really don't see the point of rogues. Mail and plate wearing classes such as enhancement shamans, death knights and ret paladins are much better at killing things than rogues. On my rogue I had to bandage or eat after every other fight while leveling. And there doesn't seem to be any viable spec for leveling except for combat swords. On the other hand I try to understand some of the appeal that rogues have. For instance I always appreciated the stealth, safe fall and lockpicking.