I thought I knew better than the forums and I admit I was wrong

Classes Rogue
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I take everything on the forums mostly with a grain of salt. Anyone who’s been on the WoW forums - especially PvP - for any length of time knows there’s a lot of complaining. After watching high-level arena streams and keeping an eye on the leaderboards I figured all of the Rogue issues being complained about were either a “l2p” or a high-risk/high-reward scenario.

I rolled a Rogue and honestly had a ton of fun leveling up as Subtletly. I felt very powerful in early levels, even if it was just single target.

When I hit 80 and went into a BG for the first time at max level, I started getting hit by what I believe are random starfire procs (the little things that fall from the sky) while stealthed. I thought this was a little odd.

Then stealth started breaking constantly seemingly for no reason.

Okay, that’s fine, but once I actually started getting into it… smart players either hit me with venom shot, flame shock, starfire, literally anything with a DoT and I was pretty hosed if CloS was down.

To me, if I was going to stick with my own mentality of this being a l2p thing I really needed to gear up and keep at it, so I did. Full PvP set and weapons… and I still hit like a wet noodle compared to everything else with a bunch of burst damage.

This is also just in PvP too. My damage output in Dungeons is downright embarassing.

I would really like to stick with the class as it’s fun as hell to play but it doesn’t seem the whole “glass cannon” mechanic is there anymore. Back in Vanilla, BC, etc. the whole thing was stunlocking someone to death but it’s just not possible anymore, and it doesn’t seem to make up for that with insane damage like it used to have.

It was dumb to think I could pick this up and do an even halfway decent job: after all I did it on my Spriest, UHDK, Devoker, Destro Lock, MM Hunter, and Ret Pally, but I didn’t think the learning curve would be this high.

The issue is I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, unlike the other classes. The only thing I can think of would be to buff their damage or have Vanish remove everything but I’m sure the repercussions at higher MMR would be staggering, which is what Blizzard seems to cater to rather than the other 99% of normies like me.

For those of you who know much more than I do, what’s the solution? In a perfect world if the stealth bugs were fixed what is needed to bring Rogues back up to parity or is this still simply a l2p issue for me?

I should clarify that this is strictly unranked BG’s right now. I want to practice and get better before I do arenas, which I’m sure at my skill level is going to be terrible too lol.

8 Likes
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Learn to understand combo point usage and pooling energy. If you can understand that then you start to unlock Rogue potential.

Namaste.

:surfing_woman: :surfing_man:

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Biggest things to learn in my opinion is pooling energy for your burst moments, and realizing that when you’re not bursting there is still a ton you do to effect a fight. Make sure you are using all the tools to peel, stun kill targets and bother healers. Use things like Shadow Duel when people are low combined with Dance and mini bursts to finish someone off, or to pull healers off the field for 5 seconds and let your team finish people off, same with smoke cloud.
Rogue damage is ok, but the power of the class is in the utility and the ability to control almost an entire team and control the battlefield.

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I have been playing rogue for years consistently in like the 1900-2100 range in rated content and people seem to think its an incredibly easy class to play that gets free rating. I always have an easier time climbing on just about any other class and the learning curve is way less on them as well. I just really like the class fantasy of rogue and see the top rogues really make the class sing and it keeps me coming back for more.

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The sheer abundance of easily applied, long lasting DoTs that are often passively applied makes approaching a crush a bad proposition for Rogues.

You need to think about your approach. You hang out on the edge of the BG fight and look for high value targets who are within your burst window or who need to be shut down.

Never underestimate how impactful a Shadow Dance chain Cheapshot on the back row of a crush can be.

Take advantage of the fact that if you open up on a healer in the back row EVERYONE will turn their attention to you. Play around for bit then vanish. Keeping their attention is enough sometimes.

Do not be ashamed of breaking contact. Run away if something doesn’t go your way. You’re a Rogue. You don’t have to put up with fighting a losing battle. That’s for Deathknights.

Smokebomb can also be used to escape or shield your team. It’s not just for your burst windows.

Rogues make for excellent body guards. One of the best ways to ingratiate yourself with the healer is to shadow them. It also lures in DPS who think the healer is vulnerable only to find out that they in fact got a squad and now said DPS is way out of position and vulnerable.

Don’t fret HKs or damage meters. I’ve said this elsewhere but when rolling up Rogues you are sold a class fantasy that doesn’t functionally exist in the game. You just aren’t going to compete with a half competent DK who can roll into the middle of a fight and put 30 DoTs on everyone in a 2 mile radius by just existing. You metric for success looks different.

Rogue’s are the SF of WoW. We excel at small unit combat, scouting (more useful then you might think), interdiction, and rearguard. The impulse is to feel like you aren’t contributing if you aren’t in the middle of a fight doing 200m damage and killing everyone. But if you try to do that you will spend most of your time in the GY because that’s not what you are actually good at.

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“The impulse is to feel like you aren’t contributing if you aren’t in the middle of a fight doing 200m damage and killing everyone. But if you try to do that you will spend most of your time in the GY because that’s not what you are actually good at.”

This is incorrect. Sin is one of the better teamfight specs in PvP.

I’m just a casual andy and it’s very easy to get top damage, top kills, and also not end up dying all that much. This is just a unranked casual BG, but it’s Kotmogu so this was just constant teamfighting in middle. No deaths. Again, unranked so it’s not like it’s impressive or anything, but just general evidence that we can be very successful playing Teamfights and not have to be forced away from larger encounters to be successful.

http s://ibb.co/NNmr8KL

You CAN play as the SF of WoW, but it’s by no means the only thing we can do.

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Interesting to read the thoughts on this. I am playing Rogue for the first time ever, and I started wow way back when we called it vanilla. Playing a SUB rogue, my stats lined up with that spec. Playing BG, Arena’s now I am in RGB trying to move up.

I have gotten slightly better, but the 1000ft view of a Rogue is that they can just run around, kill people in two shots and basically give a free win. I have found this is not the case playing Sub. At first I tried to play like my SRV Hunter, run around and try to kill 1v1 and so fourth. I found that was not idea at all.

So I read and found I am support and I pester healers, sap people etc. Kill when they stray too far from their pack and disappear again. OK. The issue with this is OTHER players complain Oh look at the charts, Oh you did not do 200m damage. Oh, you’re a Rogue, why did you not kill everyone at the node and capture it? It seems many players do not understand how a Rogue is played, and honestly, it does get on your nerves.

The information in this thread is good, I learned a few more things. So I’ll keep plugging away. For better or for worse, I’ll see this through. That was my intent for this season.

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Not sure how to use that link. So I can’t really make a response but I can hazard a guess as to what happened and it doesn’t at all negate my point.

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Get rid of the space in what looks like the link.

I also wasn’t trying to negate your point. Just correct a small misconception. You made it seem like we can’t be very good in big fights, or pull big numbers. We absolutely can.

We’re probably better off playing like you describe, but it’s by no means the only thing we can do. That’s all I’m saying.

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My guy that was a curbstomp of a a fight. You did far and away more damage then anyone and healing was practically no-existent. And 143m is on the low side of what I routinely see the big hitters do.

What you are showing is an outlier case which is not representative of the typical experience. And I don’t think advice predicated on it is going to serve someone well.

Can you do amazing damage when the stars align? Yeah. Of course. But so can every class. If you got good heals on you, and the enemy doesn’t have good heals, and they generally seem incompetent then yeah you’re going to wreck shop. I have those games too.

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I am not trying to brag, but in all seriousness, that was not an anomaly. I tend to screengrab the score screens at the end and it’s common for sin to be top or near top. Have a look through last weeks games if you want.

https ://ibb.co/NNmr8KL
https ://ibb.co/FKk5MFg
https ://ibb.co/qn1nVj0
https ://ibb.co/TPW0jWN
https ://ibb.co/v1hBncr
https ://ibb.co/hmQ9kVN
https ://ibb.co/4ZWx8Tn
https ://ibb.co/mymnznp
https ://ibb.co/JKr70Tb
https ://ibb.co/fQZYWHn

So is this an anomaly when stars are aligning? Or can we agree that rogues can generally perform pretty well in team fights? Not trying to be a dick here, but you made it seem like we generally suck in team fights, cant do good damage, and generally have to play more like tropeish assassins to be successful. I just don’t find that true in my experience.

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Not to be a dick but are screen capping all the score boards when you don’t perform well? This is basic sharpshooter fallacy stuff. I can literally see in https ://ibb.co/fQZYWHn that there is a Rogue at the bottom of the score who when I looked them are an Assassination spec’d Rogue. In one of the shots there wasn’t even a Rogue on the board. And there are only a few where you did outsized damaged.

I never said we aren’t good in a team fight. I explicitly stated we are under certain conditions. Small unit combat we’re great. And I think you know that too. Because all your screen shots come from such BGs. You aren’t posting screens of BGs like AV and WG. Because as combats get larger the the more useless we become in frontline combat as cleaves and AoEs and range dps dominate and we spend all our time in roots and snares that are applied easily to large areas. Which meaningfully effects are damage.

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I guess we don’t disagree then. You had me confused when you said, “You just aren’t going to compete with a half competent DK who can roll into the middle of a fight and put 30 DoTs on everyone in a 2 mile radius by just existing. You metric for success looks different.”

Shrug.

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That’s because rogues used too dominate the PvP areas, literally one of the most versatile classes out there with a robust toolkit, then BFA onward happened, and now we melt while slapping the opponents with wet noodles.

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Thanks for the replies and tips. For the most part this is how I’d been playing in BG’s.

I did some arenas last night with my brother on both his Mage and his Resto Shaman. We won one or two matches but it felt like the rest of the time, especially when he was on Resto I wasn’t able to get anyone down lower than 75% HP at 615 PvP ilvl.

I imagine this is still a l2p thing but if I focused on interrupts my DPS dropped significantly and I wasn’t applying enough pressure. If I focused on DPS I got CC’d non-stop as soon as CloS was down.

I played a Shadow exclusively in TOR and figured Sub would be like a worn-in pair of jeans. It’s proving significantly more difficult and the value I was bringing in BG’s isn’t there in arenas.

I also want to clarify, I didn’t expect to pick it up and immediately turn into Pikaboo, Trill or Kalvish but I also didn’t expect to be this bad either :face_holding_back_tears:.

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It’s going to be a lot of repetition before things start to feel natural as far as moment to moment combat goes in a PVP environment with Rogue.

A lot of learning to PVP with the class, for me, was understanding when to and when not-to apply pressure on specific targets, as well as how to apply said pressure.

You’ve got a kit full of utility that you have to feel out how best works for each individual moment in combat, and making those split second decisions is what makes and breaks a rogue’s ability to be useful in a situation.

It’ll get better as you practice and feel out the interactions more. Rogue just takes a lot more learning than other classes do, as each action has a benefit and consequence to it, since our utility takes energy and/or CP in various amounts to perform.

Getting your conquest/bloody token gear and pushing your PVP ilvl up to 630+ is going to make a large difference, as well. Vers is a big game changer for how much damage you’re taking and doing in PVP.

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I suspect we mostly do agree. The OPs description sounded like what someone use to wading into a pitched 10 + player fight might experience if new to Rogue.

Being immediately burned on sight, getting DoTs constantly, random damage effects and stealth breaks.

So my advice was mostly responding to that inference. If you’re at WG as a Rogue you definitely don’t want to run into the crush where all the plate wearers are disco light dancers of death.

Things absolutely change on BGs where groups tend to be smaller and thus when spilt among BG objectives players tend to form small kill teams. We shine here where a single target dps with good control can be dangerous.

But big fights disfavor us because unlike Wars, DKs, and Paladins we lack high innate survivability and abilities that allow us to ignore or shrug off the absurd amount of soft and hard CC that inevitably gets concentrated into crushes.

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Arenas are a different beast. They are likely to present the largest learning curve and will impose a very specific play style on you.

You may find that you do not enjoy this way of playing (I don’t so I don’t do Arena pvp) because it can be narrowing in some ways.

If you want to get better at Arena you need to spend the time or get help from an Arena player specifically. Rogues are, undisputedly, in the top of Arena classes. Basically every season we are represented all echelons.

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@OP

Pretty much sums up why I don’t PvP anymore. All glass and no cannon just isn’t fun.

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You are not the only one who thinks this way, rogue = sh1t in this expansion. Blizzard wanted to bury the class and they succeeded.

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