Going through all classes below 20 to test how potential new players may perceive their chosen classes and Sub rogue tends to stick out as being terribly designed.
While the other 2 specs have some form of energy return mechanic, Sub rogue does not have anything until level 28 with Shadow Techniques.
Also Shadow Blades seems like such a boring talent early on compared to having Shadow Dance. You want to “wow” new players.
Also, there’s a Shroud of Concealment talent even though they don’t have access to it?
Overall poorly designed and very little thought to it.
If they were trying to hook in new players, I would give Sub energy regen mechanic (Shadow Techniques) on par with other two specs and Relentless Strikes swapped with improved Shroud of Concealment.
Yes i realise you can reach max level in 5 minutes
Yes i realise nobody cares about early game
Rogue is terribly designed for leveling PERIOD.
out of all of the classes, they are the only one I have ever struggled with even half as much to level, let alone the motivation to play them.
Rogue has been my primary Archetype since I booted up the game in '04.
They’re not the easiest to level, but when you were crawling through the PvP Realms, that mix of WPvP and PvE made it a fun experience. Now that its just Warmode, and nobody really switches it on, kinda makes levelling drull as they’re not really PvE machines.
One thing I will say though, Sub Mastery makes no sense.
Like, why is it not “increase damage from behind and from stealth by x%”. Their whole thing was leaping from the shadows. Increasing finisher damage is more of an assasination thing. Assassins are about dispatching targets.
It’s flavour, and you should be positioned behind targets anyway. You arn’t a warrior, or frontline brawler, you’re a rogue. Strike from the shadows, where they can’t and won’t suspect you.
Combat/Outlaw is there to remove that positional requirement.
No, its also a PvP thing as much as i dont play it. For all 3 specs. Especially for new players.
Imagine trying to move through a players hitbox and you get cc in any way. Youre a new rogue and never made it to the correct position, now youre just doing less damage no matter how good your reaction time may have been. It doesnt improve gameplay, it just frustrates with how many other things the game has going on (none of which are going away)
That’s why OG mechanics like gouge, blind, cheapshot, kidney all existed. Their original intention was to allow the rogue to (re)position themselves behind the target.
Against PvE Group content, many of these CC effects were made useless due to immunity, however you had a tank to draw agro which allowed you to position behind your target for a majority of the fight.
So I argue that positional requirements don’t destroy gameplay, but enhance it. The positional issue arises with certain boss mechanics/scenarios that make it impossible to get behind the target which is mostly a PvE thing. It’s also a dev oversight.
But i literally just described a PvP example preventing you doing damage the same way. Its not an oversight, it just does not work in this game. Thats why devs took it out.
Hi um… so i just leveled a fresh sub rogue to 80 and let me be the first to say.
10-60 sub rogue is AWEFUL!!
A.W.E.F.U.L…
it is slow and clunky and energy starved to death meaning you sit there and auto attack until you get your symbols of death and relentless strikes that give combo points.
All 3 rogue specs are bad for leveling if we are being honest. “bad” being relative to basically anything else (including healers) that I’ve leveling in this game since DF. The talent trees are littered with talents for abilities you haven’t even unlocked yet at early levels and the core design of all 3 specs only really comes together once you have your capstone talents unlocked.
I personally think how poor the rogue leveling experience can be for new players is one of the reasons rogue is one of the least played classes in the game, and I’m not sure why blizzard doesn’t do anything to address it. Theres no reason to not give us a leveling/on kill passive of some sort like basically every single other melee pure in the game has to reduce the friction while leveling.
It seems telling to me because I feel like the assassin/stealth archtype in most other mmos I’ve played is often one of the more popular ones, yet rogue has been the least played or second least played class in the game for several expansions now.
