07-06-2006, 11:23 PM
Quote: the only logical explanation for what you saw was that the combat log incorrectly reported a crit as a hit, because it was partially absorbed.
Ah, now *that* is a reasonable possibility. Note: As a priest, especially now that I'm holy spec'd, I almost never pick up the Berserker buff. It's entertaining to see how one throw-away comment can start a whole side conversation. I will now amend my earlier comments:
Quote:"You are hit by Unknown Entity's Ambush for 2300." (Shows as non-crit, because some of it was absorbed!) Yeah, right. I agree that expose armor stacking with sunder would have added a nice raid utility to rogues, but well-equiped rogue dps does not need a boost. Our rogues like to bitch and complain about the same kind of stuff you did and yet they still burn everyone on the damage meter. I think rogues just like to complain.
I will say that the one gripe that rogues have that's really legitimate is the fact that dps warriors are scaling up to the level of rogue dps. This is a problem due to the design flaw that causes both warrior direct damage to go up with equipment and rage generation go up with damage. It's not right that a plate wielding "tank" class should be jumping up to the level of rogue dps. But this is a problem that should be addressed with the warrior class, not with the rogue class.
I've had to listen to lots of complaining from rogues about their class, and Quark, your comments were in the same vein. When discussing how to "fix" the class, the suggestions invariably come down to wanting to do more dps. But when you look at the situation objectively, overall rogue dps is right on target and the role that rogues play in groups fits exactly what a rogue is supposed to be able to do. In PvE, rogue dps on single-target fights is already the highest of any class in the game to the point where Blizzard has to design some encounter features to specifically to knock rogues down a peg (e.g. Baron Geddon's fire pulse or Ouro's Sweep as mentioned before). In PvP, I know rogues want to be able to kill everything and everyone all the time, but if that were possible, then everyone would play a rogue. But even if rogues can't kill everything and everyone all the time, they play several crucial roles in group PvP play with their ability to lock up healers, assassinate cloth targets, surprise enemies with superior numbers (you thought you had a 2v2 but surprise! It's a 2v4!), and sap and ninja flags and graveyards. If you don't think rogues are a feared class in PvP, contemplate why it is in Arathi Basin that teams leave at least two if not three people behind to defend each flag point even when there is no enemy to be seen for a quarter zone away.
This is not to say that some adjustments couldn't be made to the class. If some builds need tweeking to bring them up to par with other rogue builds, then I'll bow to your superior knowledge of rogues to tell me what specific builds are gimped and what could be done to bring them up to par with other currently more popular builds. However, looking at the broad picture, overall rogue dps is not the main issue with the class.
The two areas that I see that should be addressed are:
1. What are some unique abilities that rogues could contribute to raids? As it stands, nearly all of what a rogue does is dps, which is something that other classes can also do -- perhaps not quite as well in some encounters but other classes can fill in the gap. What are some things that rogues can do besides dealing damage?
Every other class provides some sort of buff or debuff that contributes to a raid as a whole, but rogues don't provide one. That's one reason I was disappointed that Blizzard is "taking back" the change that would have made expose armor stack with sunder armor. The rogues should be able to contribute *something* to the raid overall.
But I think the main problem with rogues in PvE raids is with the design of the encounters themselves. In 5-man dungeons, rogues can have more fun with their crowd control abilities. But in raids, boss mobs by nature can't be sapped, stunned, or slowed by poisons. So in most raid encounters, the only thing rogues can do is dps. Luckily, I can report that the situation is getting better in Naxxramas. In there, many mobs can be affected by various crowd control devices (yes, usually adds, but they need to be dealt with), and things like stuns and evasion tanking can play a crucial role in helping guilds beat raid encounters. If Blizzard gets more creative with their encounters and specifically designs them with rogue abilities in mind, that will help rogues feel that they play a bigger role in raids than being the local dps drones.
2. Blizzard needs to look at dps warriors and see how they relate to rogues. If fragile rogues and plate-wearing dps warriors (who can throw on a shield on a moment's notice) can do the same amount of damage, that's a design flaw. I think the problem lies with the warrior class, though, rather than with the rogue class.