In dragonflight season 3 I was going through all the classes and specs and rogue was the absolute hardest to get a hold of. Subtlety, I spent so many hours at the training dummy trying to understand in and out of stealth and tracking and lining up cooldowns and buffs and it felt soooo clunky. I imagine those that get it enjoy it but this spec feels like a nightmare to play well.
Assassination is the easiest which is saying something since it also requires stealth dancing.
Outlaw is ridiculous what is physically required to play the spec.
Look, maybe I’m just crap at rogue but these specs aren’t accessible at all. They aren’t specs I’m going to recommend to a new player or someone looking for something new.
It’s unreasonable to ask for another redesign but I really don’t think they did a decent job with it in dragonflight. I can’t think of any other class or specs demanding as much from the player to play it decently.
4 Likes
I have visited rogues, from time to time, and I too just don’t understand the specs or play style.
In BC days, (as far back as I go), rogues were all about “stun locking” mobs, and that made them great in all kinds of content. But, that seems to be gone now, or I just don’t understand how the current versions are supposed to make it work.
I salute the dedicated players that understand and make rogues work!
4 Likes
I love playing outlaw in keys, but it’s a lot of work and it’s not a spec I recommend to people new to the class.
2 Likes
New players probably should try Assassination or Sub IMO but Sub and Assassination can be complex like Outlaw too.
Overall current Rogue design needs to go back to square one:
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Fix the remaining bugs regarding CloS having magic/poison being re-applied right through it, stealth breaking randomly, and Recuperator.
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Rogue general talent tree needs to have either more connections to provide more build combos or reduce talent points needed for some talents. Alacrity should not be a 2 point investment as an example.
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Current active talents are weak compared to passive talents. Active talents need buffs.
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Duration of buffs and debuffs for Rogues are shorter than most classes and specs in the game. I will say though using full combo points of SND now yields a SND that last around the same amount of time as many other class/spec mechanics which is nice.
The shorter duration of buffs and debuffs makes for Rogues a challenging environment trying to squeeze everything into tight windows for PVE and PVP to deliver damage when needed.
Thematically it makes sense for Sub as you can not use stealth/subterfuge or shadow dance for long. But Outlaw and Assassination are specs that rely a lot on building momentum to put everything together with ramp up time. Assassination is throttled by energy and Outlaw is throttled by Opportunity procs.
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Rogues need a pass over PVP talents as most are outdated since they were introduced in Legion. For example Control is King needs a rework because SND now has been changed how it functions in TWW.
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More glyphs please!
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Several talents needs to be baseline for specs I will keep it short and simple:
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Assassination should have two charges of Shiv baseline.
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Outlaw should have one of the RTB talents baseline to reduce damage variance of many lows and one of the Blade Flurry talents.
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Sub should have several of the Shuriken Storm talents baseline as now other specs in the game DO NOT pick between AoE or single target like Rogues are forced to do. That design paradigm is outdated as Demon Hunters, WW Monks, Warriors, etc, etc can cleave and still do burst/sustained single target damage. Rogues should not be penalized.
- Rogue utility poisons needs to be buffed to be more viable in PVE and maybe in PVP.
4 Likes
-Sub relies heavily on managing your CDs, since thats quite literally where all the dmg comes from, outside of Shadow Dance they do no dmg.
Out of the 3 specs it requires the most knowledge of the content youre playing, since messing up will cause you to lose out on dmg, downtime is very punishing for this spec.
-Sin is arguably the easiest of the 3, but it requires a lot of micromanaging, keeping track of your poisons and bleeds, without them, the spec is crippled, this is specially the case with multiple targets, where you gotta manage more bleeds, and keeping track of your main target, its effectively a Dot spec.
-Outlaw on the other hand demands a lot of quick reaction time, being among the specs with the highest APM time, and keeping up with the RNG procs of it, it also requires managing your buffs.
3 Likes
I think Subtlety is the easiest to play because you can macro 2 or 3 things to your main 3 buttons. 
I think if you take a little time to read a guide on how to play Sub, and understand what it is you’re doing with the buttons, it’s way easier than Outlaw and Assassination.
3 Likes
Yeah, Sub’s main difficulty is basically learning the content itself.
Imagine using all your CDs and the boss jumps to the opposite side of the room, or youre tagged by an ability that requires you to move away from the group, its gonna HURT.
Thats why its by far the most punishing of the 3 specs, even if not the hardest to play.
5 Likes
Oh shoot I totally forgot! Yes the macros for sub and rogue are vital. But even then… I was having trouble because you need 2 different macros for one ability I think for sub? It was so confusing. I looked at logs, guides, everything and I just had mental overload and couldn’t comprehend it even when spacing things out and going one at a time.
2 Likes