Yeah I get it, once every so often in BGs or open world ill stun lock into dead with good crit RNG or something and people will complain “RoGuEs Op” on the forums but for the most part it is a bit unbearable at times, ill breakdown how each matchup goes on average as a gnome rogue. (different for UD rogues/potentially orc rogue with stun res)
I have tested out both backstab/ambush build and envenom in pvp. Of course backstab/ambush build is 10x better against mages, priests, and other rogues. envenom better against tanks.
・fighting a mage: fighting against frostbite procs, t0.5 set procs, 2 ice blocks, a now full 8 second duration immunity evocation. fire mage is a bit easier to deal with because more squishy. Depending on the players skill I feel like its more rogue favored as backstab spec against both ice and especially against fire if both have full cooldowns. deep freeze without trinket is GG. an instant 1 button 5 second kidney shot for free
・fighting a priest: definitely quite rogue favored, even with dispersion. Stun resist = more priest favored generally takes a bit of time to kill with all the sustain depending on crit RNG. 0 backstab/muti crits = long drawn out kill. good crit rng = decent kill time. If you’re caught not UD rogue or no trinket up especially with a cheap shot or kidney resist its almost 100% GG in a BG because 9 other people will jump in by the time you have a kill window.
・fighting a warlock: GG. I’ve done over 10k damage to SL warlocks with great crit rng on in both specs and 5 stacks of wound poison and its still not even close. Not only is there 30% damage reduction, a last stand rune, healing on a DoT siphon life, felguard stun, healing on haunt, death coil, etc its pretty much a “I’m going to rot out to dots while his health barely goes down” matchup is more hopeless if orc stun resist. ideally sap lock → kill pet → stun lock → blind → sap → kill anything else is a waste of time
melee form death coil is a prayer to vanish
・fighting a warrior: spec dependent, more stuns than rogues lmao, just kite and dead zone until energy/cds, kinda unbearable for backstab spec imo, been intercepted and crit for 4k from execute at full hp and 1 shot. bleeding with garrote, rupture and poison while kiting is generally the strat, gl fighting orc warrior
・fighting a druid: tree form=ez kill, bear=challenge because for some reason frenzied regen now does 120k healing while taking 0 damage, boomy is rng dependent They stun you? gg they get stun locked? gg. feels similar to a shaman fight with damage reduction and insane healing. depends on the skill level of the druid . FF sucks
・fighting a hunter: gg no questions asked. 9/10 hunters are orcs so fighting them is rolling the dice, no trinket for trap? loss. no shadow step? GG… a good hunter? doesn’t matter what u do its a loss, looking like a kill? here’s a 10s deterrence. any hunter with hands can beat even decent rogues. feels like aids fighting a good hunter. absolutely insane how 1 trap every 9 seconds HITS for as much as my full combo point full 5 stack envenom crits for let alone its a god damn AOE with 20 yard width on proc radius.
hunter procs a trap and you’re stealthing around? oh well good luck that AOE pulse damage has a wider radius than flare and will pull you out of stealth randomly even though you cant even see a trap on the ground.
・fighting a shaman: all around GG for rogue, 9/10 are orcs = gl with stuns. burn is a lame af rune in pvp pulls you out of stealth, storm earth and fire is busted if not a gnome, feral spirits don’t die if u attack them(bug?) can perma stick on you and kill you like hunter pets did in p1, unavoidable feral spirit stun even through evasion. unlimited lightning shield charges is a meme cuz nothing to do about it die to thorns damage basically, shamans NOT ONLY have mail and shield mitigation but FREE EXTRA 10% damage reduction on top of that 6% crit reduction and 30% extra hp just applying a 30 min buff to your main hand for free, power surge is broken af especially when burn magnifies the proc chance, fighting shamans as backstab spec might as well uninstall backstab CRITS for 500 with all the mitigation they out heal any and all bleed damage, a bit easier as dire brew/muti because envenom goes through armor although you’d mainly want to run wound/mind numbing so no IP procs anyway
・fighting other rogues: skill matchup, if running envenom then you almost always lose to backstab spec unless you get the open and they don’t have trinket, if its an even duel with cooldowns 9/10 BS rogues should win strictly because of blind prio
The community is going to cry like babies I’m suggesting this because their matchups will be less one sided in their favor and more even but the devs need to put in Cloak of Shadows. Perma losing to warlocks, shamans, hunters, mages with no CDs, and priests with bad rng feels so bad. We have all new spells from cata/wrath in the game so much frontloaded healing, damage, and mitigation and yet rogues have 0 outs in any duel where nothing dies in a stun lock or in CDs with blind. Rogues are the single most RNG dependent class in the game anything resisting a stun lock in this stage is a loss while other classes get insane mitigation, healing, AoE, safety of ranged. warriors can live long enough even in a pack with heals, rogues die instantly. so many stuns and roots and hours of CC in the game at the moment and still having a 5 minute PVP trinket is nuts. dive backline healers in a bg like an assassin is meant to do? 1 stun or fear off trinket and you’re essentially useless, priest will dispersion and in that time their whole team kills you, engaging on any of them with a trinket and u useless.
Literally only strength is WPVP 1v1s, have 2v1d and 3v1d before when I had every CD up but extremely rare. all in all kinda feels terrible to be so dependent on 1v1s and CDs when most classes are consistent in comparison.
tldr: gave average matchup outcomes/feel as a rogue in current SoD PVP. (not factoring in bad PVPers who trinket initial cheap shot, keyboard turn, mouse click their spells) Hunters and shamans still running trains on everyone in general. too much frontloaded healing/mitigation/dots classes have now for there to be no reason not to have cloak of shadows for rogues. vanish and sprint are virtually useless in terms of using defensively due to dots/aoe taking you out anyway. any druid with their monitor turned on will FF you. If the PVP is going to feel like cata/wrath then balance it like cata/wrath.
