Roles are entirely different in every facet from spec. Just because you’re conflating things doesn’t make what you’re doing NOT a false equivalence. Rogues can do every role they have access to in all content effectively.
Besides that, yes, I agree all specs should be viable for their intended role. I’m not advocating against that. I’m saying at least rogues during all parts of the game have been loved and sought after by the community in some shape or form for their roles.
No, because they are all the same role with the same armor and the same basic tool kit. They are not entirely different roles. Either way, you’re arguing a straw man. I never said I think pures shouldn’t be able to play whatever spec they want and be competitive.
You’re confusing gameplay mechanics (how a class feels, the abilities and systems it uses, etc) and world/dungeon design. They are two separate things. In addition, having to CC half a pack doesn’t add jack to gameplay. It’s still simple face pull once you have all your CC out. No more skill required to remember to press an extra button out of combat before stuff hits the fan.
No, the sense OP is asking it is in the vein we’re describing. Let me put it to you like this. Do you think I would give a dam if I got to level 60 only to be shunned by the good (and I’m not talking tippy top, unless you’re talking about overall players whereby even scrub heroic guilds that are just now clearing ghuun are still the 1% of wow players including everyone) guilds and you said “well, sucks that you have to put up with irrational prejudice!”
No. I’d want to get revenge on you if you were the person who convinced me to do something you knew was dumb for my intents and purposes just because you think the community’s perspective is dumb.
So there’s no inbetween? There’s no wanna-be guilds that aren’t actually world first material and lack the skill/time/dedication and yet still expect everyone to be maximized? You’re delusional.
I’ll use vanilla as an example to elicit HOW IT WILL BE (based on history of how wow has always been and will undoubtedly be).
You’ll have the true tippy top guilds. Top 1% of all guilds who are legit envelope pushers, try-hards, nolyfers. They develop the meta (or should I say have since this is a known quantity).
Then you have all the guilds from like 75th percentile to 99th percentile. These are guilds that raid casually from a time commitment perspective, yet have the same standards as far as raid comp that the true top does. They raid 1-4 nights a week for a few hours at a time and full-clear things before the next content patch drops.
Then you start getting into scrub land like 25th to 75th percentile. They have the same raid schedule as the 50-99th people, except they clear pathetically slow, bumble forking around. They’re filled with “open minded” people who just want to have a “good time” and only end up WASTING time. They have lax standards, and low skill players as a result. Given enough time to slowly let gear carry them, getting one new boss a week or less, they’d probably eventually clear everything, but they’ll be behind the curve. Not ready or capable of the newest raid whenever it releases.
Below that are guilds that don’t raid at all, or dabble.
Those last two are not worth being in and my guess is OP is asking strictly about the first two. You will not see ret in those two except for very very rare cases that still don’t form a rule to feed OP hope with.
Tell yourself whatever you want. If it’s not fair for one class to play all 3 specs the same goes for all classes.
You don’t want to be the defender of the weak or the righteous healer. You want to be the guy our for retribution.
If that’s fair then it’s fair for someone to be the guy who wants to be the ninja or assassin and not the swashbuckler.
It’s not the same at all. With cc you still have to mind that cc. Wrath and on except a brief period of cata it was face tank and forget.
Wrath was the beginning of the new. Everything is accessible.
Everyone can do everything.
Wrath does not fall under vanilla and bc design at all.
Which is obviously as you pointed out, not what the op was asking about.
The op wants to know if they are viable at the very top. Which isn’t the case. They are viable elsewhere obviously. But the point is top guilds will always use what’s most optimal no matter what. How popular havd druids and Warlocks been these past two expacs?
Popular enough to still get thousands of parses each in every raid at mythic level.
If mythic raiding were a thing in vanilla, you would see exactly 0 feral, boomkin, ret, etc parses on any raids. That is the difference. The very best guilds stack like you’re saying, but the top guilds that still do all the hardest content that virtually no one does still take literally every spec in the game.
inb4 “but what about nax!”
nax is, at best, heroic difficulty equivalent. AQ40 as well. Every other raid in vanilla is normal mode difficulty. Still, the stigma is the same and will apply harsher in classic than in live, despite the content itself being easier, because the differences are far more vast.
I literally just proved you wrong by providing statistical evidence counter to your point. World first is not the top. That is the tippy top. That has no bearing on the reality of wow or the raiding scene. It affects maybe 500 people versus the hundred thousand that do mythic and the hundreds of thousands that do heroic and and part of mythic.
Again, you don’t like the fact that good balance means “no specific reason to seek out a rogue” and that’s fine. I don’t care about it. I think people who want specific reasons to be brought to stuff suck and need compensation or want to feel special in some way they otherwise can’t because they aren’t good enough to.
No I mean no reason to take a rogue at all. Why would I take a rogue when another cat brings aura innervate and battle res?
I would literally stack my raid with 1 mage for intellect, one or two locks for summons and stones, one or two hunters for tranq, shots, get a couple warriors for shouts and then stack druids for battle res innervate and aura.
What does a rogue bring me? No utility, only dps. But hey everyone else does the same dps and brings loads of utility.
Why do you think rogues started disappearing in wrath and beyond?
That is why modern balance woulsnt work in vanilla. You invalidate entire classes. Your best bet would be to go with bc balance and bump up the weaker specs like ret and druids and mages a touch or two.
I’ve done this a couple of times with you now and you either always forget or just refuse to accept that there absolutely HAS TO BE a break point between where you can leave all of the class abilities in place and the utility+dps of a hybrid would garner enough support in the eyes of the community while not completely invalidating a pure. I’m fine with that type of balance.
Also, rogues started disappearing in wrath and beyond because no one likes puny pathetic people in weak armor with small weapons. At least far less than other tropes that exist, like the legolas class, aragorn class, etc.
Case in point: You say balance on live is just as bad. Rogue, DK, and locks are a way smaller part of the population than other roles, yet they’re the most powerful and some of the most desirable for nearly all forms of content. That can’t possibly be just because people don’t like the aesthetic of the class! Not at all!
Which is why modern design doesn’t work. Which is why I said bc balance. Not modern. Modern balance is everyone does the same dps. Bc balance is you do x dps and bring y in buffs and utility.
Your opinion on rogues is entirely subjective and I’d like to see your source seeing as one of the most popular characters in the dnd universe is drizzt and he’s literally not wielding big bad weapons.
Oh and one of the most beloved fantasy characters ever written was a rogue. So good luck proving your theory.
You’re asking me to prove my feeling as to why people shifted away from a class that was blatantly OP in the most desired role to something else once they finally felt they didn’t need to roll FOTM to be competitive any more and you provide exact… what… to back up YOUR personal opinion that it was because rogues were now less valuable? Literally neither theory can be proven, so we’re both equally sound in our positions.
No I’m asking you to back up your claim that people don’t like rogue characters in fantasy.
And the problem isn’t that rogues are made less valuable it’s that you took the thing that made them valuable and didn’t give them enough compensation elsewhere until later on down the road.
You must have been so valued. They didn’t even give you shadowmourne. Also your achievements don’t back up your statement.
You also havent raided any CE content yet speak like a 1%er, whats up with that? and not only that you seem to have all the game knowledge of someone who flicked on and off at the start of every patch.
Yes your parses are pretty but hey I guess for someone who’s not progressing I guess thats all you have.
I have my mage tower appearances, and I’d have CE stuff if I had even played in panda, guaranteed. But pandas are dumb and so was that entire xpac. Also, it’s not like there could possibly be another akaidian out there with entirely different set of achievments. Not some other human paladin at all. Completely impossible.