Rogue Vs. Feral: stuns per minute

PVP Arenas
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All specs should be cared for and treated equally, and be equally consistent at the highest levels of play.

This post is inspired by some recent posts comparing maim to kidney shot.

Here are the current exact stuns per minute (spm) for feral, and estimates for rogue (estimates cdr and modest estimates of # of stuns used during subterfuge)

stuns per minute (in seconds):
feral: 27 sec
Assa: ~30 sec
Outlaw: ~31.6 sec
Sub: ~50 sec
feral (30 seconds cd maim): 22 sec

the exact estimates used for cdr and subterfuge cc are at the bottom.

  • Currently, even the lowest rogue spec has more stun potential than feral, and a nerf to 30 sec maim puts feral down to only 73.33% of the lowest rogue spec.
  • Ferals spm is more concentrated into maim because it doesn’t have kidney shot and so a maim nerf has more weight relative to a kidney nerf to rogue.
  • Kidney nerf came the same season rogue received 2x vanish and 6 sec subterfuge, and so wasn’t without compensation. Feral has no such compensation to cc, and has only received a cyclone nerf.
  • No one in good faith would argue feral has been nearly as consistent as rogue. Even in dragon flight when maim and kidney were the same cd, rogue was s+ in awc all expansion and feral was not. While I would rank feral #2 melee in consistency over the last few expansions, rogue is #1 by a wide gap.
  • while the na awc granfinals was feral vs feral in tww season 1, eu grand finals was outlaw vs outlaw.
  • feral now has a 4% weaker ms than all three rogue specs.

It is a GOOD thing for feral to be brought up to par with rogue and no longer have a “budget rogue” reputation its always had, and likewise all melee dps should be brought to the consistency of rogue. What’s not good is rogue - and now feral - being consistently above all other melee dps. Melee balance has the biggest consistency gap than any other role, imo. Feral has come closer to the viability of rogue and their buffs/nerfs should be in equal proportion of each other. It is absolutely not right or fair to nerf feral, a spec that has been meta for a season and a half, in greater proportion to rogue, a spec that has been consistently meta since at least bfa season 1, and I strongly believe a maim nerf to 30 seconds puts feral back into permanent budget rogue status and I think any honest rogue would agree.

That being said, strong measures should be made to bring all melee in line with rogue. Returning ccs and utility that have been pruned from the game, fairness in defenses, all melee having at least <= 2 minute defenses usable while stunned (many specs in wrath had defenses while stunned that has since been removed), nerfing rogue and feral ms (equally) to 15% or even lower, large aura damage nerfs to feral, and if it must be done, cc nerfs but only in true proportion to each other. But I am not a fan of damage-first design, where you nerf the fun parts of a spec in order to balance around its current high damage. I am a fan of design that balances around fun and not removes fun to balance. I not a fan of the types of nerfs that make people quit the game. I am not a fan of the pruning of cc and utility and defenses from less fortunate melee.

I feel we are at a pivotal moment in time that may decide the fate of feral for expansions to come, and so I am speaking up for the spec. As should everyone their own. Some people are afraid to speak up for their own class because they dont want to appear bias, but it goes both ways - most people who dont play your spec have incentive to be bias against it, so speak up.

I also want to say that as someone who as a child started as ret/war/dk, ive felt the the pain and empathize with all melee as much or more than anyone, and have had friends who haven’t logged on in 4 years after the treatment of ret in expansions like legion/bfa.

below is the basis for my stuns per minute calculations:

Feral:

opener - rake stun (stun durations 4)
maim (cd: 20, stun durations: 5)
mighty bash (cd: 1 min, stun durations: 4)
incur stun: (cd: 2 min, stun durations 4)
shadowmeld (cd: 2 min, stun durations 4)

Rogue:
opener - x2 cheapshot, primary and off target (stun durations: 8)
kidney shot (cd: 30, stun durations: 5)
vanish, 2x cheap shots primary and off target (2x charges, cd: 2 min, stun durations: 8)

shadowmeld, assuming 2x cheap shots primary and off target (cd: 2 min, stun durations 8)

sub rogue only:
shadow dance, triple dr cheap shot (2x charges, cd: 1 min, stun durations: 7 seconds)
shadow dance cdr, assume -10 from cdr per minute

Outlaw only:

Vanish cdr, assume -20 from cdr per minute

This is assuming low ball amounts of rogue cdr and modest amounts of stuns during subterfuge

2

Both classes need pruned. Easy fix :slight_smile:

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Mage stuns per minute:

Arcane: 0
Fire: 0
Frost: 0 to 1 (Snowdrift)

Thank you.

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Rogues loose so much DPS stunning 50 times per minute. I agree buff rogue dmg

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Interesting post, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the metric of “Stuns per minute”, but a few immediate thoughts:

Stuns per minute is not an accurate indication of class strength. At all, imo. Parity isn’t the same as being the EXACT same in all areas. We want them to be equally competitive, not identical.

We ain’t giving Rogue bear form, for instance.

Melee consistency gap isn’t biggest in melee, at least in arena. It’s the largest in healers. It’s not close. Source - Dustvar solo shuffle leaderboards above 2100. Arguable, sure, but… Again. It’s not close.

This obviously isn’t taking into account recent buffs and nerfs.

Feral is extremely strong at high ratings and there are a lot of very high rated Ferals. It may be best to see how this falls out before jumping to the idea that Ferals are doomed.

I don’t know, man. This whole argument seems a bit off. The base idea of stuns mattering this much is clearly off.

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stupid post stupid poster

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The best melee overall historically is rogue. Rogues biggest thing is how much cc and set up it has allowing it to work with pretty much any other class in the game. That is why rogue is op. Feral has the second most cc out of every melee in the game. Feral is generally the second best melee in the game. If you put either of these specs cc in line with the other melee dps “1 large stun with 1 short stun max” they wouldn’t even be close to how good they are now. Likewise if you upped the cc for the other melee. Giving ww fist stun back, making warrior shockwave and stormbolt longer, reverting the duration nerf to aoe chaos nova for dh, etc. It would improve those melee significantly. Saying that having a lot of stuns doesn’t equate to the specs being strong is just wrong. The only way those specs kits could be balanced while having insane cc is for them to have negative damage and just be cc bots.

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Excellent write-up, I agree, rogue should not have an edge over feral. We should nerf rogue immediately.

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this is a good write up but the only problem I have with this is it leaves off the fact that feral has clone.

I know this is all about stuns, but having these stuns with a powerful spammable CC such as clone is also what brings feral so much closer to rogue and above everything else

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AHAHAHHAAHAHAHA

ty

Dude, actually there can be x3 Cheap Shots in ST and x6 Cheap Shots in 6 targets.

What? Have you ever played rogue?

I’ll say this, there’s no need to make a rogue out of a druid, each one should be unique, why don’t you mention the cyclone and roots for example?

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What about Clone for Feral?

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But they’re not OP. Their representation is good and rogues are fine, but they’re simply not at the level of “OP”.

There are literally more Feral Druids in the top 1k than there are Rogues of any spec in dedicated arenas.

Druids have twice the total representation than Rogues and Ferals are the majority of it. Representation doesn’t always equate to balance, but there is clearly a strong link. In solo shuffle, you see a more normal distribution, with Assassination being slightly more popular than Feral, but still close and both of them middle of the charts for representation.

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Rogue and feral are two specs where 99% of the playerbase plays them poorly. When played optimally they are unbeatable monsters. Which is why to the average player both seem fine half the time, but then to high rated players they seem overpowered. You think rogue is ok, just because you’ve never played a good rogue. Both feral and rogue are op. Just wait, awc will happen next week and will be dominated by ferals and rogues. You could even just watch any high rated stream and 90% of every team has a feral or rogue in them. Just like how it’s been for the last 10 years. As long as rogue and feral just have 2x more cc than every other class in the game they will be played 5x more than every other class at a high level.

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You made up so many numbers in that post. I’m honestly impressed.

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Ok where then?

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But why should Feral and rogue be balanced over stun per minute ? You are trying to makes them have even less distinctive points ?

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fixed it for you chief.

why did it reply to remi. :dracthyr_no2:

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Drustvar leaderboards, Arena, top 1000. I can’t post links, but you can just type that into google and get the exact link.

There ya go.

66 Ferals

56 Rogues.

Which isn’t too far off, except the real comparison should be between Feral, Sub, Assassination and Outlaw. Where it’s not even close.

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Ok so… you didn’t read anything I typed. Gotcha.

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You’re making no effort to actually understand what I’m typing. You’re just trying to refute everything.

Your points, broken down:

  1. Rogue/Feral are only played well by 1% of the population.

So I’m looking at the top 1% of players for you, where Rogue is only reasonably well represented. Ferals are above average, granted, but there’s a lot of reasons for that, not just “Stuns are all that matter”. If stuns are all that mattered, rogues would be above them. They’re not.

  1. High rated players agree with you and I’m too bad to see how bad I am. Also, I’ve never played against a good rogue or feral.

I mean, you can say this. You’re wrong and it’s a stupid point, but you can say it, I guess. This is a wild assumption to make about anyone frequenting the arena forum.

  1. 90% of all high rated arena teams have a rogue or feral.

This is simply incorrect. Out of 689 DPS, rogues and ferals account for 122. Which is a lot, but assuming there are no teams that run both, this would mean that only about ~18% of teams are running one or the other. Not 90%, lol.

  1. Ferals and Rogues have 2x more CC than every other class.

Lol. I’ve never broken it down all the way, but there aren’t many specs with LOW CC anymore. Hunters, Mages and Warlocks are all just outright amused by a claim that Ferals have more CC than them, to my knowledge.

  1. 5x more than all other classes.

I mean, see any of the math on this. They’re simply not that well represented.

Numbers matter, homie.

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