Warning long posts ahead. TLDR at the end of each subsection, will divide them by posts in the comments. Also excuse any spelling/grammar mistakes, english is not my first language.
With a few weeks into SoD Phase 2 and a lot of Rogue playtime I would like to summarize my experience and other players’ and propose some solutions at the end. I have enjoyed my experience quite a bit, but our class is left behind.
First our status by content:
Leveling/Questing: Rogues are doing ok here. The runes speed up our kill time and time between mobs. Other classes take 3-4 mobs at a time more consistently and safely - but we are not by any means gimped.
PVP: In BGs and open world PVP we are doing fine but have problems. We are “assassins” but if -anything- goes wrong in our stunlock, we are dead. The time to kill a Rogue for SPriests, Druids, Mages, etc. has increased dramatically. You can jump on someone, but if there are any other enemies nearby, you are gonna get CCed + killed faster than you can kill someone or, put simply, be relevant. Part of the reason Mages and Priests are rampant now is that no one can really stop them. The changes to Priests are particularly egregious. No one can win vs them anymore with Dispersion. They can protect themselves, CC us and then kill us by themselves.
STV: We suck in the current meta. Others have range or AOE or Cleave or Heals or Tank CDs or any combination of these. We don´t have any of that. We have unparalleled single target CC and decent single target burst with Mutilate. STV is a battleground of 5 v 200, we are good 1 v 1 and STV is anything but. We get Feared/ Rooted/ Stunned and erased in 2 seconds when we leave Stealth. It is hard getting into groups - and people sometimes leave when they see a Rogue. What is the attractive of maybe getting one kill per rotation when other classes can get 10x? Tanking here is also a lacking, we lack relevant abilities for a battleground like this. Tank Rogues end up being killed/CCed the same as DPS but Tanks forgo the damage DPS normally have.
Dungeons: Oh boy, before SM we are ok. By SM the gap between other classes widens. We have 1 AOE and 1 “Cleave” in kit. Shuriken Toss is bad DPS, more on the Runes later. We also get every 2 minutes Blade Flurry, which isn´t bad but only hits 1 other target. Why would you take Rouges that can only DPS 1-2 targets when every other class deals more AOE or brings utility? Yes, we can single target hard-CC. It’s still better to get another AOE DPS and kill mobs before hard CC is relevant. It´s tough to get a group unless you Tank. In which case we are quite fine in dungeons with the recent changes. We can´t hold AOE aggro easily, but no Tank manages that if their team starts blasting.
Raid: As Tanks, we are mediocre. We can get the job done but we have the same problem as in dungeons. We don´t provide much else to our team, which every other Tank does. We have Expose Armor and Kick. For Expose Armor - other classes provide a competing debuff, leaving reliable Kicks as our only other advantage. This leads to groups needing Tanks but not wanting Rogues as any other choice is better. As DPS, we are in a sad state too. We are middle at best in DPS rankings and provide no utility. For a class that was normally the single-target physical DPS this is quite sad.
Looking at Parses in warcraft logs so far, the first Rogue at the rankings appears at spot 751 with 478 average DPS in the raid. But he is an outlier. Only 4 other Rogues appearing between spots 800 and 1600. For reference, the highest DPS so far is a Warlock with 662 DPS.
Now, looking at average rankings for the 75th percentile. There are 6 specs lower than us.
Arcane and Frost Mage - which are getting buffed. Mages can also just go Fire or Heal.
Feral and Balance Druids - which contribute a lot of RDPS and are usually sought after for a variety of reasons.
Paladins - which 100% also needs some love as DPS, but they can tank and Heal
Ranged Hunter - Which will be brought to content regardless because they are Ranged or deal more damage as melee than us.
TLDR: We need some love, we aren´t getting groups in Dungeons, Raids or PVP because we lack sustained damage, cleave and utility.
Now, talking about ALL Rogues Runes and how to improve them:
Poisoned Knife: Useful maaybe if you want to kite 1 mob as a Tank. Damage is bad, CD high. Shares slot with Shadow Step. This would need to be buffed a lot in damage, CD and energy lowered. Maybe change to Main hand weapon damage. But this hints at some potential Ranged Rogue build.
Shadow step: I find this in a pretty good spot. Putting this outside the GCD might be abusive in PVP. No changes.
Shuriken Toss: If this is going to be our only AOE ability, it needs to be buffed until the current iteration is unrecognizable. If we get more AOE then this is ok as a tool for pulling mobs as Tank.
Master of Subtlety: This is alright in PVP, not enough for PVE as seen in the DPS charts. We need buffs elsewhere.
Rolling with the Punches: Amazing for Tanks in PVP and PVE. No changes.
Waylay: Pretty good in PVP for 1 v 1 or BGs. If this applied the AS reduction to bosses, we would have more relevance in Raids.
Deadly Brew and Just a Flesh Wound: Putting these together cause I love the current iteration of both. Tanking Rogues need more love, but it can be given to other Runes.
Quick Draw: Shares Slot with other amazing runes, useful for PVP though. Maybe give it a slight damage buff. Hints at some potential Ranged Rogue build.
Slaughter from the Shadows: Waste of rune space right now. Maybe have it reduce the cost of other skills, but reducing the cost of Mutilate might be too oppressive in PVP. Or maybe have it increase your Energy regen rate after an Ambush or Backstab from Stealth instead. It would still be hard to justify it in the current game state though.
Main Gauche: Rogue Tanks have one defensive CD in Evasion and then… this. The opportunity cost in exchange for our strongest damaging skill is (maybe) some damage reduction. It does nothing vs Casters btw. Instead have it reduce all damage taken by 10% and keep the parry rate too so we can have a proper Tank CD.
Mutilate: This is our best rune currently. No changes.
Saber Slash: Hoping it will be viable if we get good swords to use this with in the future. No changes.
Shadow Strike: Shares slots with Mutilate, it is good to use for questing/leveling once you can erase mobs. If we ever get another option for a filler ability other than Mutilate this + Shadow Step might be meta. If this is not outside the GCD (can´t remember) make it and it´s alright.
Shiv: Didn´t this use to Dispel Enrage effects? It is currently so useless the only buff I can think for making it viable is giving it some crazy effect like cancelling the targets Dispersion, Bubble, Ice block, Evasion, etc along the missing dispel effect.
Between the Eyes: Perfect for PVP. Hints at some potential Ranged Rogue build.
Blade Dance: Ok for what it is. Could use a small buff by giving it a small reflect like effect to anything we Parry, we need that extra damage and there are already literal Swords circling around us.
Envenom: Perfect choice for PVE but we are so left behind in DPS still, maybe increase the duration of the poison proc chance buff after using it. That would help PVE more than PVP.
We also have our skill book for “storing” combo points, for it to be useful it needs some changes:
Make it so the range on it is higher, the CD lower and the Combo Points are stored on us so we can use them immediately instead of needing to use another attack first.
TLDR: Rework Runes so many are not entirely useless. Give us utility and some uniqueness in PVP. Give us more ramping damage to catch up with other DPS and a few Tanking Tools.
Now, finally. What solutions do I propose (also open to any others):
I understand buffing Rogue damage directly is dangerous as the 1-shotting potential in PVP can be unfun and unfair. This isn´t Classic or Retail and the developers have stated some things about AOE damage which is understandable. But it is bit tone deaf to do -nothing- if you prioritize the data and current game state over personal game philosophy. I.e. looking at the game by what it is, instead of what it should or tried to be.
So, Rogues need more ramping damage in single target, Tanking Tools, Cleave (not AOE) and some utility. There are also some interesting hints/potential for a Ranged Rogue build. So:
For Tanks: Give us a bit more DPS, make Blade Dance do some damage to attackers - this will not break PVP. Then give us some utility too, Smoke Bomb for a Raid Wide dmg reduction sounds nice. Waylay applying to bosses would be neat too. We also need a proper Tank CD, make Main Gauche reduce all damage by 10%. Finally, Leech Poison tacked into a Tank Rune would help us a lot and give nuance to our builds. Might be cool if we get some anti-magic damage or anti-cc tools too.
For DPS: We need more ramping damage and some utility to stay relevant in PVE. Give us a way to use Enhanced Expose Armor without speccing into it and enhance it even further if used with 5-Combo points. Make it so it increases all damage a target takes by 8% or something for 30s. This wouldn´t share a debuff slot with warriors or Priests and is not dangerous in PVP because of the opportunity-cost of building and using 5 combo points on a non-damage or CC finisher. We also need some Cleave, give us the opportunity to use the toggle version of Blade Flurry where all damage we do bounces to 5 targets for 70% damage, but we get reduced energy regeneration while active. That would also help tanks a lot. Or give us an AOE Combo Spender finisher.
For PVP: See section on Shiv Rune. Make Evasion or Vanish drop dots or cleanse us. I do not know if we are ever going to get DKs in SoD… so why not give Rouge Tanks a Grapple Hook to pull a target to them? Other than that, the changes to Blade Flurry and some real Tank CDs would help.
For Ranged Rogue: This is just an idea, but would expand the groups we can apply too. We would need Slice and Dice to also increase Ranged AS, being able to apply poisons to our Ranged weapon and a filler Ranged ability. See suggestion on Expose Armor, make it so it can also be applied from range. Here is another idea, make a Rune that gives us a Ranged “Stance” in which we can only attack from Range except for one melee combo spender that pushes us back. We would build combo points, use them, and then go in with Shadow Step for a big finisher.
TLDR: Give us ramping damage single target, utility and some cleave. Ranged spec maybe?
I hope Blizz sees this, or considers at least part of it, and thank y´all for reading too. I want to mention again that I am in fact enjoying SoD, and I know the team at Blizzard managing this is supposed to be small. So I tried to give some suggestions on changes that would not take too many resources to implement along the more intense ones.
Have a good one everyone!