Is rogue a casual friendly class?

hi there i wanna play rogue but im a super casual, i heard some ppl saying the class was hard, others easy, the thing is is it casual friendly? can i perform well as a casual or do i have to try harder?

I would give it a no. I played Rogue initially for a long time and there are so many better classes imho. I have a Rogue still but leveling it versus the ease of other classes like Warlock, Hunter, Shaman is apples to oranges.
It is fun though for pick pocketing. Can do that all day!

2 Likes

Not really, rogue is one of those classes you can’t just roll your face across the keyboard and pull decent numbers

3 Likes

I’m the type to get every class to max level, and rogue is probably the hardest class to play if you want to pull bigger numbers. For example for Outlaw, you have to micro manage a lot of short cooldowns, keeping uptime of Slice and Dice, Between the Eyes, Roll the Bones, Blade Flurry, among others.

7 Likes

Also a no here.

The posts above are all accurate.

Further, taking a class with another role function, like tank or heal, increases the space you can play and let’s you have more opportunities to play in the limited time you’ll have.

2 Likes

For things like mat gathering and world quest I think rogue has been fine for me.

For soloing harder mobs, def not. Anything with a tank spec can also pull half a map and live, it’s just such a massive qol increase on speed to completion.

That being said, dungeon expectations on tanks are much higher. As dps you can skirt by not knowing some of the less frequent abilities that won’t outright kill you.

2 Likes

Any class in WoW can be played casually

2 Likes

Been playing Rogue and Paladin. On Paladin, I feel like everything is manageable and solo’able, even PvP. On Rogue… well, yeah, it’s a struggle. It feels like having a class with stealth comes with a ton of taxes. I miss the way it was Pre-Legion, back then my survivability and toolkit felt immensely better.

6 Likes

I have been a casual rogue for a while. Do you like exploring the world without fear of being attacked? Then rogue is for you

3 Likes

I believe they can be played casually in the open world, although tanks are better at gathering groups and burning them down without downtime.

In group play it’s more difficult to do well due to their more complex rotations while also trying to remember your defenses and avoiding mechanics.

It could be my low ilvl gear going into Dragonflight, but I struggle with packs of 3 mobs or more. I burn down 1-2 very fast though. So I respected from hard aoe to better single target/cleave. I’ll try aoe again when I get some better gear.

Rogue is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, class to play in the open world. Their sustain is incredibly weak Leech, a 25% max health heal on a 30s cd, and then a 30% max health heal on a 1m cd (less if Sub). Until you get decent iLvl, Rogue alts have a really hard time farming in the open world and certainly can’t pull off the kinds of open world pulls you see classes like Warlock, Mages, Druids, and others do.

3 Likes

NB4 - Wall of text. NB4 Boomer detected, yes all true.

As a long time rogue main I am going to provide some counter arguments for a potential player looking to enjoy rogue.

The comments made are not inaccurate. Rogue is not casual friendly if your intentions are to play at the highest level for your class. Hell, this is all I play for many expansions many years coming from a vanilla player that made a move from warlock to rogue in wrath and never looked back - and by all measurables - i suck. I dont think I do, i like to think I play this class very well especially given the skill cap. But investigation into my achievements and ya, bottom feeder I am.

Now that I made this all about me, lets get back to you.

With Dragonflight talent trees Rogue is much more accessible. Specifically in the following way, You do not have to take the big brain talents until your are ready. I have made some really dumbed down builds (from a keybinding perspective and buff management) that may not shine as the meta / minMAX but depending on the content are plenty good enough to get the job done. WOW players have lost this understanding due to all the analytics. I am looking at you green parse club of which I am the king. However, if at the end of the dungeon your team succeeded, and you got that sweet loot. Same to be said for a battleground or getting your conquest bar full for the week.
So what you are 1400 rated. Missions Accomplished should be celebrated not only analyzed for continuous improvement.

Start by getting a feel for the play style by only going after a couple main objectives of your build. I would argue playing a non-optimum build well is better than playing the meta poorly.

As your muscle memory and situational awareness gets to a good place you start adding in more to do and manage.

Previously you specialized got 90% of ā€˜all the things’ then made a few key decisions that were really never a decision. There was really only 1 depending on the content (PVP or PVE for this spec).

From a casual perspective as well, if truly your goals are casual play. Then mythic raiding or high keys or top level arena should not be in your expectations. From that stand point - the game feeds you plenty of gear every week for casual. Of which I consider myself a Hardcore Casual. Meaning, I play hard, I study hard, I try hard - but I acknowledge my shortcomings and accept them. I will never be Pika and that is ok.

My personal opinion is this is the best rogue I have played in years. Hell maybe a decade. The player agency has a lot to do with that and for the first time my class does not hit like a wet noodle. Previously to land the kill (speaking PVP here) the amount of work we had to do was significant. The smallest of errors were punished. Eventually no class feared us. They respected us in that voice chat is always - ā€œKill the rogue.ā€ Right now, they fear us. I know more ā€˜tuning’ will come. But I pray to the blizzard God’s that they do not take it too far. If what I have read is true we are one of the least played classes in the game. And thematically, shouldnt we as rogues be feared at least a little. Both on the damage meters and in PVP?

Some of that may be due to the ā€˜skill cap’ but that is not the entire story. How many options for some stealth action is out there, what about stun, what about CC, interrupts anyone got some of those? Wait, all the classes have our tool kit and bring something else to the table. We literally bring 1 thing to the table. Melee DPS in content where range dps is usually preferred. In addition to non-preferred CC in PVE content. We should be rewarded for sacrificing all the utility that makes us undesirables in a lot of group content.

This is where you need to be prepared. If you are not in the cool kids club. We will see as seasons unfold but if solo and using group finder premade tab. Be ready for some rejection. Be prepared if you choose to main to potentially go through the trials and tabulations on all fonts. PVE grouping may be challenging at times, PVP skill cap is very high.

BUT - absolutely in my view, if there was ever a good time to see if rogue may be the right fit for you. This is by far the best time to find out. Once a particular specialization ā€˜clicks’ in your mind for how you get all the horsepower you have to the ground. Enjoyment at least for me, is very high. Being able to ever so slightly tweak it, add a little more of this, take some of that away add replay value as well.

18 Likes

Love this :kissing_heart:

2 Likes

Well said, Coercion.

2 Likes

For me this was a recent boost from shadow lands. For open world, the thing that clicked for me on questing and such was to understand the best way to maximize uptime on energy regeneration as well as picking survivability talents.

You would choose different load outs for other activities but since we can swap on the fly we have a lot of flexibility.

I think the mere fact of playing a stealth class makes rogue one of the best casual open world classes. We are good in group content also. You can be a NE rogue and literally never have to fight mobs of enemies. If a fight isn’t going in your favor, you can just vanish out of it and re strategize or wait for CDs.

It’s probably the class with the biggest disparity between bad players and good players, so possibly the least casual friendly in the game when looked at from that perspective. But on the other hand it has a vast toolkit of interrupts, stuns, and mobility while also having very high damage potential and survivability. So if you’re able to learn everything the class is capable of and make it all second nature, then I think it oddly becomes easier than other classes (given the same skill level) because it has a kit with an answer to everything.

For example, if you mistime a kick, you still have four different interrupts you can potentially use. If you get stuck in an AoE and already burned your Sprint, then you still might have Grappling Hook or Shadowstep or even Blade Rush (and if those fail you have Feint to reduce damage and Crimson Vial to do some healing). They can also stay entirely mobile (by nature of instant cast melee attacks) at 10 yards with a couple talents. This is absolutely massive and underappreciated. I’m able to kite elites at this range (but if I can’t then I can still pop Evasion for 10 seconds of dodge if needed, and Vanish when I run out of hope).

So in other words there’s a lot of depth to the class that takes time to master, but that depth buys you margin for error that other classes don’t have.

But that said just pumping out max dps is a bit more challenging and easier to mess up than other classes with a smaller rotation (e.g., fury warriors) or classes with braindead whack-a-mole rotations (enh shaman).

1 Like

I have to agree with most above on this one, Rogue has been rough since panda land. When they got rid of the combat rogue and turned it into a wizard pirate, they lost me using it for a main. Up to that point it was the best burst damage class for hardcore raiding, for me. I tried to roll one again for dragonflight, getting to 70 questing was pretty fun and relatively easy but dugeons and raiding are a whole new beast. Chain pulling of any kind is a nightmare and it seems tanks have no Tank etiquette anymore, its just chain pull till the healer can’t handle anymore which turns into just trash play for an assassin rogue rotation. I hate the new tanking style that has taken hold, they roll like we used to once we were in the end of an expac and everyone was geared as could be. I will be forever be casual since they killed off combat rogues and DK frost tanks. Tanks out there, if you can read, plant your feet ffs. Monk tanks can gth.

Uhh… just no.

Maybe you can play casually if you don’t care about anything but heroic dungeons, world quests, LFR raids, and non rated BGs. That’s mostly enough for casuals.

Anything else will require a moderate commitment to your class if you want to be an above average player. That’s why I gave up bringing my rogue to higher level PvE content. I refuse to play the AoE specs that are needed for that content. I hate that playstyle and if I don’t choose it, my dps is low and the entire group suffers for it. You really don’t have talent choices if you want to progress in higher end PvE. It’s especially noticeable with rogues.

Congratulations! You just contradicted yourself while explaining what it means to play casually and being a passive aggressive tool.

ā€œAykchually you can’t play casually. All you can do is play all the casual content.ā€

What a true big brain moment.

2 Likes