A Rogue Story
Queues for Alterac Valley were averaging 12 minutes on Saturday, so we were boot-scooting on over to the Elemental Plateau to farm air and fire motes in between matches. We weren’t alone.
There was a horde rogue, flagged, farming as well. We don’t mind sharing, and we don’t want to be a jerk, so we farmed airs while he was on fires.
Then he came over to grab some airs. Alright, whatever, we’re not gonna /emo about it.
/gank
What the? How’d he attack us? Ohhh. We were still flagged from our last AV and he wanted the plateau all to himself.
He was a Shadowstep rogue. How do we know? He “shadowsteped” half-way across the plateau, got behind us, and stunned us six-ways to Sunday. He smushed us pretty quickly; we weren’t ready for that.
Fortunately, there’s a graveyard on the plateau, so running back to the BRK Corpse was fast. Rez, recover, Track Humanoid, find rogue, kite and… Vanish? Yes it prevents us from killing him for 10 seconds, but while he’s invisible, we slam Track Hidden, toss a Flare, sit on a Frost Trap, Feign Death and recover.
He tries to sneak up behind us, we see him, Intimidation and Bestial Wrath, down he goes. We’re now tied, 1-1.
We live on a PvE server specifically because when we want to farm, we want to farm, not PvP. We’re not going to corpse-camp; that’s not our nature.
We go back to mote-farming and hope the rogue does the same. And of course, he doesn’t. He attacks, we kite, he Shadowsteps, stuns, we die. We rez, attack, he Vanishes, we wait, he attacks, we kill him.
We do this sequence a total of three times, an even number of wins between us, 3-3. And then the AV queue pops and into the battleground we go.
As we start our offensive rush, guess who we run into! Yes, the same rogue who was fighting us on the Elemental Plateau! How awesome is that; karma at its finest.
Ummm… Our brilliance is so astounding that we just now realized that the rogue we were fighting in the battleground is from a different server than us; it wasn’t the same guy. The name was similar, but a rogue cannot be on the R________ server and Drenden at the same time. /genius! /smacks-self
The Alliance offense presses our attack, we sick Hobbes on that rogue, Hunter’s Mark, and Serpent Sting him every time we see his little nameplate popup on our screen. And when the battle starts to go against him, what does he do?
He Sprints.
Notice that the guy avoided dying completely. And our two deaths came at his hands; he was gunning for us, too.
But what did we do that he didn’t? We didn’t run away from the battle. And why is that important?
If we can make you run from the battle, we can turn our ferocious artillery onto another enemy, basically killing two people at one time. If you’re out of combat, you’re more than just eliminating your DPS from the fight, you’re letting some other member of your team die in your place. /cast [target=you] Dummy
Dying is not The End, and in many cases can be tremendously useful.
If you’re Horde, defending your Relief Hut, and make us spend 10-15 seconds trying to kill you, the rest of your team will be able to support and heal you. And if you do die, you’ll rez at the Relief Hut, fully healed.
If you’re Horde, defending your Relief Hut, and you Sprint away, you won’t do any damage to us – you’re as good as dead – and we’ll start killing your team’s healers. What sounds more tactically advantageous to you?
As Megs preaches: It’s not the Killing Blows that wins matches, it’s the implementation of sound strategy that does. In this battleground, that rogue should have stayed in place and allowed us try to kill him as many times as possible. If we’re killing him, we wouldn’t be nuking the Horde’s healers, which is our favorite thing to do.
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/agree
Tactical advantages are something that my battlegroup doesn’t seem to comprehend. They like to spend 35 minutes trying to gang—- one tauren prot warrior, rather than take down the healers keeping that warrior from dying.
I’ve had to lose my way through over 50 AB matches because of poor tactical planning.
Actually BRK if you chase him down he is the one with the tactical advantage. I have more than once on my mage drew a group of allies away from the objective while somebody was either recapping or defending a flag. Yea a mage that can kite a group /rolleyes, it works when you have a healer following you and most of the time I make sure to whisper one to get them to follow me.
I love doing the O-shiny of running through a group with a clothie and have them chase me while somebody is behind me taking care of business. Fighting at the flag is never good when your the one trying to cap.
many, many times have i fought a rogue that chooses to sprint away when he begins to lose the fight. it wouldn’t bother me, except i generally don’t initiate combat in the world – it’s always the rogue popping out of stealth behind me and trying to stunlock me down. if you try to gank me, starting combat with every possible advantage, then run away when it doesn’t go your way, what does that say about you as a person?
rogues are all about cooldowns, which makes them exceptionally annoying in pvp. they have SO many cooldowns to blow, so many of which are incredibly powerful.
Rogues may be very cooldown based but keep in mind the class also only wears leather armor and has no way to heal outside of a bandage which we must use properly. Yes, Shadowstep, Perparation, and Hemorrhage are the current favorites but when compared to the other two trees, its the spec that gives mobility and survivability.
Former hunter turned rogue Pre-BC, love your blog BRK.
Shadowstep Rogues are endless fonts of cooldowns. I find it eye-opening to list every special PvP-oriented ability they could theoretically use against you, given all of their cooldowns:
Avoidance:
Vanish (run hide bandage, invisible even with track hidden or perception and engineering goggles)
Evasion (hope you’re not a Warrior or Hunter)
Cloak of Shadows (hope you’re not a Mage or Warlock)
Cheat Death (total safety for about 3 seconds)
Mobility:
Shadowstep (removes CC)
Sprint (removes CC)
CC:
Blind (actually not that overpowered by itself)
Kidney Shot (actually pretty overpowered. see world of roguecraft)
Damage:
Adrenaline Rush (stun->death->lulz)
Blade Flurry (completely reasonable, by itself)
Plus:
Racials (MORE CC-breakers!)
Trinkets
BRK,
Rogues run away so they can get OOC and re-stealth and restart the fight with a cheap shot. Dont ever think he isnt coming back lol…
@ Nick S.
Mobility:
Shadowstep (removes CC)
Sprint (removes CC)
CC:
Blind (actually not that overpowered by itself)
Kidney Shot (actually pretty overpowered. see world of roguecraft)
Damage:
Adrenaline Rush (stun->death->lulz)
Blade Flurry (completely reasonable, by itself)
Plus:
Racials (MORE CC-breakers!)
Trinkets
Evidently my browser messed up and I couldn’t edit past the 5 minute mark.
@ Nick S.
A rogue with cloak of shadows is powerful against a caster. Without it they are kited with little skill. IE: rogue v. mage pre-TBC.
Cheat death is getting nerfed pretty hard (as it should).
Shadowstep does NOT remove CCs. If you step with a root/nova on, it comes with you.
Sprint only removes snares if you’re specced into it, which 99% of shadowstep rogues are NOT.
World of Roguecraft was done a long time ago. It was done to point out uselessness of gear on (most) of the rogue abilities and how horrible most players are at PVP. That isn’t the case anymore (except for the horrible players part).
No one specs Adrenaline Rush anymore except for the very few AR/prep rogues out there. And you can’t spec AR and shadowstep.
Listing racials and trinkets when you’re talking about class-specific abilities is just ridiculous.
If you’re going to post to nerd-rage on rogues, at least know what you’re talking about before you do.
@xaven
all it is is a list of cooldowns. you can disagree on specifics, but the list is still really, really long, and racials are hardly a non-issue. escape artist is a pretty serious advantage when you’re fighting a class that can take you from 100% to 0% if they get close and your trinket is on cooldown.
my perspective is as a very casual pvper, and my experience with rogues is that they start with serious advantages in pvp.
but even from the perspective of the highest heights of arena play, rogues have proven to be dominant.
don’t be condescending. no, i don’t play an S4 rogue, but you don’t have to know every rogue skill to know they’re overpowered at most if not all levels of PvP. hell, you don’t even have to play WoW.
Static damage! Even as a rogue, I loved the World of Roguecraft series. To those who believe Rogues are OP, take advantage of a Season 3 Rogue on the PTR while it lasts. Spec’d any way you want, Rogues still die, can be kited and aren’t the awesome pvp gods you believe they are.
I had a hunter and was my first one to hit 60 Pre-BC and I loved the class. Playing some Warsong Gulch I would constantly destroy rogues.
I thought why it seemed so easy to take out rogues and out of curiousity I rolled what I currently play today, an Undead Rogue named Teaspoon. To this day, my hunter is still at 60 and my rogue prepares for the expansion.
Cooldowns are called cooldowns for a reason. Yes, a rogue could blow everything to win a single fight but then for the next 3-10 minutes they have nothing. This sir is a bad rogue.
And just for fun, to counter your statement:
Avoidance:
Vanish Although Vanish allows the rogue to enter an improved state of Stealth where even Perception can’t detect the rogue, you first must understand that Vanish is a broken ability that sometimes does nothing but a puff of smoke.
Evasion Leather class up against a warrior for example is not pretty for a rogue. Evasion helps but we still eat Overpowers and we can still be CC’d to decrease the strength of this ability. 5 minute cooldown, talented down to 3 in combat.
Cloak of Shadows 6 seconds of 90% immunity so it does fail. But understand this ability was added because Pre-BC a rogue was kited horribly by Frost Mages. Smart warlocks and Mages know that when the rogue turns shadowy, run away from rogue for 6 seconds and commence beating with Death Coil, Frost Nova and such.
Cheat Death: High end rogues where using a mix of PVP and Tier 6 gear to become blade killing machines, Blizzard is now nerfing the ability. But you know how I dealth with a rogue that had Cheat Death? Rupture and just waited 3 SECONDS before more then likely the Rupture tick would kill the rogue.
Mobility:
Shadowstep Does not remove CC. A rogue can ShS while in a Snare like Frost Nova, but once the rogue does, he still remains in the snare. 30 second cooldown.
Sprint: Only when spec’d with Imp Sprint in Combat, only breaks a snare but reapplying a snare will stop the rogue again. 5 minute cooldown, lowered to 3 with talents in combat.
CC:
Blind (actually not that overpowered by itself) Thank god its not a poison anymore, fighting druids with Abolish Poison on sucked.
Kidney Shot Based on Combo Points from other abilities, max 6 second stun when used with 5 Combo Points and with a 20 second cooldown.
Damage:
Adrenaline Rush: To be honest AR will not take a person from 100 to 0 with the HP boost and Res. 31 points in Combat.
Blade Flurry: 21 Points Into Combat
Plus:
Racials (Yes, only rogues have Racials)
Trinkets (Yes, only rogues have trinkets)
Rogues don’t have enough talents to cover all the abilities. Like I said, roll one of the Test Realm and see what its really like.
One of the things I like about suicide Mage runs, is that people are drawn to the little guy that is fundamentally doing little damage… but he is damaging you, so you will give him your attention.
I don’t know how many times I have stalled or broken turtles by running into & through the front runners towards the healers… people just target me.. forgetting all about the other 10-20 team mates burning them down.
I die – well that was expected, run back to a depleted opposition, and repeat… but they never learn.
actually if you’re in a slow grindfest of reinforcements you are helping your team by not dying. every death counts in AV. If neither team is progressing on towers then you can’t run in and aoe/fearbomb like the old days, not without whittling away your reinforcements.
In WSG one thing I liked doing if I was about to die was run and get people to follow me in the opposite direction of our flag carrier. Don’t know why people would follow me but they do, no matter what class. Dps on me means none on the runner or healers.
I play an Enhancement shaman, which means I can only beat rogues if they’re monumentally stupid or they’re AFK.
In arena, the instant I realize they’re stealthed, I put down Searing, Poison Cleansing, Earthbind and GoA, equip a shield, break out of the stun, lay down a Warstomp, get behind them to Stormstrike, hit SR to minimize the retaliatory damage, bring them to below 10%…and me and my partner still lose.
I try to Flame Shock to prevent Vanish. They just CoS to get the Flame Shock and they’re gone, and I’ve blown all my cooldowns.
I try to get melee them. They dodge almost everything.
I try to get behind them so my strikes land. They apply more poisons quicker than I can take them off, so even close-quarters mouse turns don’t do me much good.
I try to whittle them down with spell damage. LS and Searing are like drops in a bucket.
I don’t pretend to know everything about the other classes, especially the classes I haven’t played through alts, but judging by the volume of complaints I see on the forums, pretty much everyone except Warriors seems to suffer the same problems against them.
This season, 95% of my losses are to Rogue teams. It’s not just that they’re OP nowadays — it’s that they’re so OP, people have re-rolled in droves to get on the bandwagon. When 70% of opponents are rogue teams, it speaks volumes about the futility of playing against them in PvP.
I don’t expect any serious re-balancing before WotLK (Cheat Death is just a start) but I seriously hope the devs do something about this situation in the xpac.
As the name implies, i utterly hate them. If i could napalm once class in this game to oblivion, it would be rogues.
Pre-TBC, hunters owned rogues and it was great. HM actually worked on them and SS would’nt allow them to re-stealth. Now, we have no defense against rogues unless you have a trinket, frost trap, etc…which most the time is useless because rogues always get the drop on hunters.
Meh, i re-rolled a paladin anyways. Paladin > rogue. Cyas in the BGs
*deleted* posted under wrong entry – sorry
All the QQ about rogues is astonishing.
And making lists of cooldowns available is just plain silly. It proves absolutely nothing. You can make a list of every class’s cooldowns and all that would show us is … a list of every class’s cooldowns. Woopty do. Adding in racial abilities is also ridiculous because they’re not class based, they’re race based which means (conceivably) YOU could have them too. Escape Artist is useful against so many classes, it’s just ridiculous to list it as something specific for rogues.
I wonder if it’s just a coincidence that almost everyone QQing calls themself a “casual” PvPer … hmmmm.
“If we’re killing him, we wouldn’t be nuking the Horde’s healers, which is our favorite thing to do.”
Why weren’t you killing the Horde’s healers in the first place? Shouldn’t you have been doing that from the start instead of focusing on the rogue because you thought he had attacked you while you were farming?
I don’t think rogues are so overpowered, sure good ones kill me a lot, good and geared ones kill me a lot. Once i’m stunlocked I’m dead basically on my BM hunter. But you know what? so what? I can kill plenty of other classes easily. They are just harder nowdays. Remember starting with .9 for a long time up until vanish removed hunter’s mark rogues were easy pickings.
If a rogue is not very good or if I can get the first shot I can still kill them. I can kill them more easily on my priest. (Though please make Warstomp instant instead of having a cast time!
) And I suck at PvP. I mean really suck.
World of Roguecraft is so old, those videos of the naked rogue with 2 grey daggers don’t even apply anymore, eviscerate and other core skills were changed way back in 2.0.
And about ganking, anyone who played horde before TBC knows pallies were the biggest gankers/griefers.