Hey all!
I’m hoping to a new server due to always being full and long Q times.
I’m considering re-rolling into a Rogue.
My main goal for Classic is to get into World PVP (and probably BGs)
I was considering maybe Lock or Shaman also.
How gear dependent is it to play as Rogue??
Rogues are not gear dependant. Warlocks are.
Rogues were one of the least gear dependent in Vanilla. Eviscerate did good damage regardless of your weapons, and most of the rogue toolkit was useful regardless of gear (vanish, prep, stunlocking, etc.). For world PVP and very little gear dependency Rogue fits the bill.
Warlock needs some gear in order to perform at least enough to not get rekt left and right in PVP. Warlocks shine with high stam and without gear you won’t survive a lot of fights unless you can utilize your CC’s effectively. BUT, once they DO get gear, they can melt faces as well as Shadow Priests and I believe Soul Link spec is almost unbeatable in 1v1 duels. They are scary with gear but need gear.
I don’t know about shammies though, never played then in Vanilla at all. Basically Hunter and Rogue are the least gear dependent classes, with druids assuming it is feral druid since their damage doesn’t come from their weapon.
THere’s a reason Mute could kill people with 1x Worn Dagger and no equipment in World of Roguecraft.
Almost all of the abilities scale very poorly with weapon damage but do solid damage just based on their basic skill ranks…
Which is also why Rogues sorta fall off at high end. They never get to “bad” territory but once everyone is geared, Rogues are a lot less “OP” than people remember.
A well-geared Demo lock (after the 1.10 Demo rework) can literally kill a rogue with two instant DoTs and drain life in between kicks. Without ever being in danger of dying.
And, ironicaly, as your gear gets better, you actually weaken yourself against warriors… the more you dodge, the more they kill you with Overpower.
Good insight! Makes me want to consider Lock a bit more.
I’ve always thought Warlock in Classic would be fun, I’m a little deterred by their lack of mobility and needing bag space for soul shards though.
Something to consider. If you roll a lock, even at higher gear levels rogues will eat you. In the rock-paper-scissors game, Warlocks are mushrooms.
You should seriously check out World of Roguecraft. Mute goes into the issues real well. If this doesn’t deter you on a Lock for World PVP, then welcome to the Lock Club.
World of Roguecraft Ep 1
~https://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=26540
World of Roguecraft Ep 2
~https://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=7940
Rogue is heavily gear dependent and the last one chosen for the premade. A shaman has a chance at two spots. Elemental has super high burst but is tough to gear. Warlock is the least gear dependent and one of the four alpha classes in pvp along with warriors, paladins, and hunters (if they ever get fixed) hope that helps!
Don’t listen to Zoots. Those videos are from long before the patch we are on. A warlock in rank 10 gear (easy to get) is going to faceroll any rogue that is not in T3. Even then it the rogue makes a mistake you will beat them.
No, not remotely.
I love me some World of Roguecraft (and they go in reverse order, Ep 3 came first, then 2, then 1), and Mute is an excellent player…
Those were all done well before Aff and Demo got serious revamps (1.08 and 1.10).
After the revamp, Demo is basically unkillable.
Soul LInk (old-school 50%) + Master Demo buff for Voidwalker, then when your VW starts to get low, sac him for a 4k shield, Fel Dom a new VW, and keep Agony and Corruption applied at all times. Drain when you can (go ahead and let him kick you, and/or spam fire spells to bait the kick - he either eats continual searing pains and immolates, or he kicks you), keep your instant DoTs up… sac the second VW if you need to. Throw fears when you want/can to get some drain time/time for your DoTs to tick - you’re not really counting on them for anything serious so whatever if they DR.
Also, if you need a third pet, its only a 4.5 second base cast for you as Demo, so a well-timed Deathcoil > Fear can get you a THIRD Voidwalker to split Soul Link with and Sac when needed.
All told, its about 14k-16k worth of effective HP he has to eat through, in a game where most 60s have sub 5k and even tanks struggle to hit 6500.
No rogue can kill a PVP-speced Demo Lock in 1.12 unless the warlock is a complete incompetent.
In fact, there areally aren’t any of the typically troublesome classes that can kill a Demo Lock that is spec’ed for PVP solo. Now, ALL of them can get away from you, as you have no way to stop them from running… but thats really all they can do.
Mages, Hunters, Rogues, Warriors, lolRetadins, Shadow Priests, non-Resto Droods and Shamans… none of them can touch you.
Anything that heals youll never kill, but similarly, theyll never kill you. ANd it will take you forever to kill anyone, but theyll never kill you. All theyll be able to do is run or hope for backup as you slowly melt them.
If this was true, Warlocks would have been far more popular than they were at the time. I also certainly was killable. I am not saying I’m great at PVP, but I wasn’t terrible back then either.
When people start going “X” class is this unkillable machine you just can’t take down by any class, then one stretches credibility pretty badly, even if they try and back up their post with data.
No, what happened was people didn’t realize it would work out that way. THe changes came so late, and Demo had already been abandoned outright as a spec for ANYTHING.
So when the big changes came, no one bothered. Everyone was already Aff or Destro.
I was one of those players in Vanilla. I mained Afflock from Beta - … well, always. Ive never seriously played another spec. And yeah, at high end, Rogues will eat an Afflock for breakfast.
You simply cant live long enough for your DoTs to kill them. Even WITH Siphon Life and drains. You cant escape, nothing.
Same with Destro. Either you beat them in your Seduce/nuke/fear chain, or they ate you for lunch.
But Demo…
There are a number of videos from the day, though, of the very few people who mained Demo PvP in 1.10-1.12, that you can go look up. Its absurd. The one im thinking of in particular is a guy out doing Silithus stuff for rep, and he is jumped by a full HWL UD Rogue.
FIghts end with a dead rogue and the warlock well above 70% HP, with a pet out. Rogue just couldn’t do anything.
And i didn’t say “unstoppable killing machine”. You cant kill ANYTHING if they have the sense to run away. Because you can NEVER catch them. And you cant put up enough DoTs/pressure that if they run away they still might die (no Siphon, your Immo sucks and is a 2 sec cast). But if they stay and insist on fighting you? Theyll never kill you, and if they insist on trying, theyll just slowly rot away and die. Void Sack alone is ~4k damage absorb that prevents cast interrupts and pushback
If they can heal (even a Retadin can heal) you probably wont kill them (though you can OOM a melee-centric spec that uses Mana fairly quick with Drain Mana), but theyll never kill you either.
Its really good for instanced PvP (you can defend a node against 2-3 people for a LOOOONNNNGGG time with no support, and if there’s even a spot-healer with you, the two of you can hold off 5+ people for at least 2 solid minuts), and is great for not getting ganked…
But its not a stone-cold killer. THe damage output is EXTREMELY low. The price you pay for being relatively unkillable.