Rogue Nugget from Tiggole

[Skandranon]

Apparently our lovely priest may have made some friends with another guild.  He participated on raids of Scholo and Strath I think and has been invited back for more.  He's mentioned that we'd be happy to participate as well. 

The guild's name is Death Jesters I think.  Anyone heard of them?
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Yes. Rylea has gone on a few raids with them, as well, and they're good people. The only thing that might bother is their standard policy of FFA loot, but BoE greens are always passed off if they're an upgrade. They also don't favour guildies over non-guildies when it comes time to distribute loot, and have an eminently fair system for it.

They've been doing some recruiting since I last raided with them, so things may be different now, but not too different, I should think.

[Rinnhart]

My suggestion is simple.

Rogues are all about cunning right? Allow rogues to pick another player in the group who they will divert toward all the agro they generate.

Every group would want a rogue  then to both do huge damage and to help keep agro focused on the tank.

It really is a lame feeling currently when you play a rogue and you essentyially dont try hard in fights because it makes the group work smoother.

EDIT: This doesnt solve the AOE problem, but it would be a huge improvement.
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I'm amused that the concept of aggro control is so lost upon most World of Warcraft players.

Whether or not someone can tank is based upon how fast and how long a healer can keep heals landing on that avatar.

Tanks have the greatest values of hitpoints, so they can soak up more damage between heals, and allow a greater margin of error for the healers. They also have the highest physical damage resistances (AC) so they take less damage to begin with. All of this means tank classes are more efficient to heal, and easier to heal over the course of a pitched battle.

So it's not that you can't go all out. It's do you want to be done with the instance without having to let the priests drink every fight, or can they even keep up with your life? I don't know many rogues who are geared for taking hits over doing damage. And if you're dead, you're doing no damage versus slightly below your maximum.

[Abattoir]

I'm amused that the concept of aggro control is so lost upon most World of Warcraft players.

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It seemed to me that Ghostiger understands the concept of aggro control just fine. Essentially he seemed to be saying that deliberately under-performing in single encounters in order to control aggro and be more successful in the long run is immediately less satisfying than putting out as much damage as one possibly can. I'm sure plenty of players would agree that aggro control isn't fun, but that's not because the concept is lost on them.

[Guest]

Whatever. Im glad your easily amused by points that no one ever said.

[Guest]

It seemed to me that Ghostiger understands the concept of aggro control just fine.  Essentially he seemed to be saying that deliberately under-performing in single encounters in order to control aggro and be more successful in the long run is immediately less satisfying than putting out as much damage as one possibly can.  I'm sure plenty of players would agree that aggro control isn't fun, but that's not because the concept is lost on them.
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[Guest]

It seemed to me that Ghostiger understands the concept of aggro control just fine.  Essentially he seemed to be saying that deliberately under-performing in single encounters in order to control aggro and be more successful in the long run is immediately less satisfying than putting out as much damage as one possibly can.  I'm sure plenty of players would agree that aggro control isn't fun, but that's not because the concept is lost on them.
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[Guest]

Yes.

Rogues are a 1 trick pony. We have some very minor utility(sap and stuns), but they pale compared to other classes utility.


And in stances we often have to way way tone down our 1 trick.

[Rinnhart]

It seemed to me that Ghostiger understands the concept of aggro control just fine.  Essentially he seemed to be saying that deliberately under-performing in single encounters in order to control aggro and be more successful in the long run is immediately less satisfying than putting out as much damage as one possibly can.  I'm sure plenty of players would agree that aggro control isn't fun, but that's not because the concept is lost on them.
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No, I'm pretty sure it's lost.

Otherwise they'd be trying to find ways to optimize that dps, or perform at maximum capability while not pulling aggro, instead of commenting on how much it sucks to have to "[not] try hard in fights".

Try hard at perfecting the art of skirting the line between full burn and dirt nap.

It's CONTROL, not avoidance.

[Guest]

Seriously just go away.


You want me to make bad inferences and supposition about how you play? - please start posting more on other topics so I can make up stories about you.

[Rinnhart]

Seriously just go away.
You want me to make bad inferences and supposition about how you play? - please start posting more on other topics so I can make up stories about you.
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No.

And you're welcome to correct any erroneous supposition. I'm just working with what I'm given.

Aggro control is neither something that will soon be written off as you've suggested thus far (if they want to keep the game entertaining) or something to be trivialized by saying I'm attacking you personally. It's an attack upon this way of thinking, that aggro control should be easy so I can just do whatever I want, that is so prevelent. If you're taking that to heart, by all means, rebut.

This is the Lurker Lounge, the hardest of the hardcore forums for Diablo2 players, and yet so often the centric game mechanic of WoW, and all MMO's, aggro management, is looked down upon as a hassle.

Aggro management is what sets MMOs apart from other games by forcing you to use a group of people, large or small, to accomplish a goal. Tanks absorb the hits, healers keep the tanks alive, DPS classes put down the enemy.

MongoJerry 1 groups content and people are amazed. The general populace of WoW still considers 5 manning most of the "end game" instances impossible. Because they've been soloing and zerging #$%& for so long.

Warriors and paladins have "aggro problems". Sure. More like the rogues and mages need to learn to play their fricken classes. Suggest this publicly and you'll be shouted down. You're not there soloing a mob while someone gets hit, you're there working as a team. The tanks are sorry you're not satisfied by the kill.

The difference between killing kobolds and killing gods is how you approach the fight. If you go at it guns blazing, as a dps class, you're going to pull aggro and die. And in doing so, you've weakened the whole of the raid.

So, pacing yourself is boring? Reroll as a warrior, you'll get to play your ass off trying to hold aggro off your former fellows. Or as a priest, and test your skill against the tanking magi.

Again, this is nothing personal, Ghostiger, just a friendly rant against the unwashed hordes. But if one person reads this and realizes "jeeze, that guys a dick but he might just have some kind of point mixed in with all the garbage", I'll stand behind my words.

EDIT: If not, well I'll still stand there, but I might deny being Rinnhart or even knowing the name.

[Bolty]

Aggro management is what sets MMOs apart from other games by forcing you to use a group of people, large or small, to accomplish a goal. Tanks absorb the hits, healers keep the tanks alive, DPS classes put down the enemy.

MongoJerry 1 groups content and people are amazed. The general populace of WoW still considers 5 manning most of the "end game" instances impossible. Because they've been soloing and zerging #$%& for so long.[right][snapback]70776[/snapback][/right]

Rinnhart, you hit the nail on the head there with raid groups. I remember thinking when they announced raid groups that nobody would 5-man the Deadmines anymore and think it was "easy." This was before they removed quest rewards for the raid groups. But just as most groups don't bother with the Deadmines now until they're well in their 20's, raid groups at the high-end instances are the norm and 5-man groups are "impossible." I hate how the lower instances have this reputation as being "easy." Bull. The problem is that most players don't run them until they're much higher in level than they should be. For instance, the Deadmines should really be run with a party of 18's, not 22's and up as most pickup groups are. What makes the high end instances seem "hard" is that you can't run the level 60 instance with a team of level 65's, so you need to use killer team tactics.

Warriors and paladins have "aggro problems". Sure. More like the rogues and mages need to learn to play their fricken classes. Suggest this publicly and you'll be shouted down. You're not there soloing a mob while someone gets hit, you're there working as a team. The tanks are sorry you're not satisfied by the kill.

The difference between killing kobolds and killing gods is how you approach the fight. If you go at it guns blazing, as a dps class, you're going to pull aggro and die. And in doing so, you've weakened the whole of the raid.[right][snapback]70776[/snapback][/right]

Ghost, he's got a point man. As a Priest, I'm sick and tired of mages and rogues who simply think they can go to town on every fight and expect me to pick up their slack. Was in a raid group taking on Araj in Andorhal the other day (because there's "no way" it can be 5-manned, right) and the mage in the party decided that he was going to blast away at whatever target he chose. Despite a warrior and a paladin in the party trying their best to soak up aggro, 2 skeletons walk on over and put the mage down in 3 hits. Mage then blames me for not healing him in time. I put him on /ignore. Never mind that even if I could save him, we would have wiped because he would have cost me about 2,000 mana in heals.

Priests are forced to learn early on the importance of aggro management. So are Warriors, Paladins, Warlocks, and Hunters (due to pets). Mages and Rogues learn to simply kill fast fast fast, screw the aggro. Then they complain in groups because they can't play the same way they can in solo. Guess what? Neither can any other class! I don't win fights soloing by healing myself - I nuke. And nuke. And nuke.

But if one person reads this and realizes "jeeze, that guys a dick but he might just have some kind of point mixed in with all the garbage", I'll stand behind my words.[right][snapback]70776[/snapback][/right]

Jeez, Rinnhart's a dick but might just have some kind of point mixed in with all the garbage.

:)

-Bolty

[Guest]

You didnt read my post Bolty.


"Ghost, he's got a point man. As a Priest, I'm sick and tired of mages and rogues who simply think they can go to town on every fight and expect me to pick up their slack."


If you had read my post you would see that Im already saying about how rogues that go all out just hurt the group.

My point was that rogues are so one dimensional that its kind of boring playing a class in raids that cant do the one thing its good at. Rogue are onlly good at hitting things for damage - everything else they do is just a weak substitute because you are missing a class thats much better at something.
I end up spamming stuns often but that really a waste in most well balanced groups.


You start to feel useless when the tank is doing a roughly even DPS with you. That means the group would be better off with a second tank rather than you.
Rogues need a change to they are better than a last resort for instance groups.





Note: Rinnhart acting like this is just about me not knowing how to control agro is an absurd misdirection.

[Mavfin]

Rinnhart's got some great points. I can't say much about aggro control from a priest's point of view, but I can say plenty as a main tank.

In a party, in an instance, one of the BEST roles a rogue can fill, other than doing damage with the limitations discussed above, is crowd control. If you find sap and stuns to be boring, then you'll have to go zerg or raid the instance, and not 5-man it.

My mace/shield tank isn't going to out-DPS you, either, even if you hold back. On the other hand, you're going to have to crit a couple times in a row to pull a mob off her, too. Are your tanks in defensive stance? Or are they battle/berserk with a two-hander? HUGE difference in aggro generation by the tank in that case. If I stay in battle stance, it's trivial to pull a mob off my warrior. If I'm in defensive, and I have a taunt, a sunder, and maybe something else, be it rend/disarm/revenge, they're pretty much mine until they die, unless someone really nukes/crits badly, and usually if they hit that hard, the mob's dead or near death.

Stuns and saps are excellent team-helpers. If you don't wish to use that part of a rogue's arsenal in an instance, because it's 'boring', then you need to skip instances, or find another class. That's like my warrior standing back and just using her gun because she doesn't want to melee.

In an instance with my tank, usually the rogues I work with are firmly planted *behind* the mob(s) I have locked on me, beating the living bejeezus out of them. I have a slow one-hander, so it's like dagger-dagger-dagger-dagger-dagger-my mace swings for cleave-dagger-dagger-an instant ability for me-dagger. I mean, he's *working hard* up there, and doesn't sound like he's holding back any! In the very rare instance that a mob turns away from me to look at him, that's just before it falls over dead.

On the mage-vs-rogue question: I'll take a rogue who knows crowd-control over a so-so mage any day of the week. I've seen lots of mages who don't know how to sheep the right things. For a while, I partied with a 14-year-old who really knew his crowd-control as a rogue. Unfortunately, those rogues are as rare as the mages who truly know their stuff.

[Treesh]

My point was that rogues are so one dimensional that its kind of boring playing a class in raids that cant do the one thing its good at.  Rogue are onlly good at hitting things for damage - everything else they do is just a weak substitute because you are missing a class thats much better at something.

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Rogues aren't one dimensional any more than mages are. Yes, sheep is better than sap because it can be cast on things in combat. It may also be the groups that you are playing with. For some groups, I wasn't allowed to do much of anything in the group - no expose armor because it interferes with sunder, no sap because people didn't want to take the extra time and we had a mage along with us, couldn't gouge because the hunter would sic the pet on the add instead, couldn't backstab or ambush or eviscerate because I'd pull aggro from the warrior. So I was forced to basically sit there and do regular attacks with an occasional sinister strike thrown in and use the combo points for slice and dice. I got very frustrated and didn't like playing in groups because of it.

Things changed when I got riposte and feint (among other skills too). My rogue can go all out on critters now in groups and not cause too many issues for the tank (although I haven't been in a group with a pally as main tank so I don't know how fast and furious I can pump out the damage in that case). Feint is a rogue's friend and so is having a little patience. Let the puller pull, stealth, position yourself and by the time you get into position, the tank should have a fair bit of aggro generated and some rage too if they are a warrior/bear. If I do end up taking aggro away from the tank (which doesn't happen too often), I can feint and just do regular damage for a bit. If we're fighting elites with big armor, it's time for the DoTs to come out. If we've got casters, it's time for stun locks. Yes, it's still all about the damage, but you can still dish out damage and not gimp your rogue too much in a group. Just use the right skill for the job and have some patience at the start of a fight. If you're playing a rogue solo, you've had to learn some patience anyway from trying to get yourself into the right position so you don't wake up more critters than you can handle. ;)

To sum up, partly it's the rogue's attitude that determines how gimped they are in groups and partly how well the party will let you do your job as damage dealer and pseudo-squishy protector.

Edit: And before someone points it out, no, I haven't been on the end-game raids with my rogue. This is just me discussing the rogue in regular groups at the low to mid level. Yes, the end game changes, but many skills and tactics you learn at the low to mid level can be carried over to high level content - such as aggro management.

Edit2: Have to agree with Mavfin who didn't take nearly as long as I did in typing up my ramblings. ;)

[Guest]

Sap is fun - but franky we dont need to use it much. I would love to see instances where it was almost required. Currently Most groups only want me doing it on rare occassions. Plus it only work on humanoids.

Spamming stun is boring though IMO(I have done it enough.) Its great when you use stun tactically - its not great when it becomes the defult finisher.





What really ticked me off about Rinnhart though wasnt that he disagrees with me when I say rogues are boring.

Its the lying crap he says about how I dont understand agro and playing the class. There is a difference between disliking the senerio, and not understanding the senerio. I Understand how it works - I just dont like it(and the title of this thread shows that Blizz agrees there is a problem.)

[Guest]

Well in the end game mages do 2 very different types of damage which in itself makes them attractive. They can go single target or AOE.

Well done AOE is fantastic in many situations.

[Bolty]

Well in the end game mages do 2 very different types of damage which in itself makes them attractive. They can go single target or AOE.

Well done AOE is fantastic in many situations.[right][snapback]70814[/snapback][/right]

This is dead-on true, yes. Given a choice between a mage and a rogue, most everyone (myself included) will take the mage along on a trip. This is because:

1) Mages can sheep in combat.
2) Mages can do damage from afar (rogues take AoE damage from mobs that dish it out).
3) Mages have the best AoE attack in the game (Lyceum, anyone?).

That being said, Rogues make great party members. I did a BRD run a week or so ago with a warrior and two rogues in the party. Every group of 5 down there (near Marshal Windsor) was reduced to 3 before the fight ever began, as both Rogues would sneak up and Sap away. Nobody complained about the "slowness" of the group, because we were just romping everything. If a party is willing to let a Rogue contribute, they benefit.

I do see your point about the raids, though. With Molten Core mobs dishing out AoE fire damage to anyone close, Rogues instantly become a total liability that sucks mana from the healers at a rapid rate. This needs to be corrected in some way. I remember various fights against the Princess of Maraudon to be brutally hard because of her AoE damage beating up the Rogues in the party. I'd run out of mana far too quickly trying to keep people healed.

I have so little Rogue experience, but I know that when a mob is stunned it's basically crowd controlled - unable to hurt your party, with the added benefit that you can pound on it. The inability to stun raid mobs is another problem. It's more that the design of raids makes Rogues irrelevant than the Rogue is broken, much like the design of PvP makes Warriors irrelevant because they can't "tank."

In group PvP situations, who even bothers paying attention to the Warrior? Kill the Priest, secondary healer, damage dealers, and finally tank. The Warrior's frustrated because their whole purpose (absorbing damage to protect the squishy folk) is negated when fighting other players. Imagine if Taunt forced enemy players to target you and only you for 5-10 seconds in PvP. Suddenly everyone would want a Warrior along in group PvP fights...

Anyhow, I'm rambling. Raid design has made Rogues irrelevant, though they remain the gods of PvP. Raid design has made Warriors a necessity, although they remain the joke of PvP. Perhaps you can't have it both ways. When Battlegrounds comes out, people will be looking for Rogues constantly.

-Bolty

[Quark]

Sap is fun - but franky we dont need to use it much.  I would love to see instances where it was almost required.  Currently Most groups only want me doing it on rare occassions. Plus it only work on humanoids.

Which is every instance. My group probably could not do instances without my Improved Sap. We just don't have the class balance for extra mobs. Every battle we fight in an instance is more or less controlled chaos, where are tactics are certainly risky but as we have no true Tank or AoE, they're the best we have come up with. Crowd Control is #1 when you're in a dangerous spot.

Spamming stun is boring though IMO(I have done it enough.) Its great when you use stun tactically - its not great when it becomes the defult finisher.

Is this boring because you're actually letting your teammates do damage instead of you? Or because your tank is taking less damage overall? Or because caster mobs are rendered useless by rogue stuns? I've never found my stuns to be boring, always found them helpful when used, and I'm an Ambush rogue.

What really ticked me off about  Rinnhart though wasnt that he disagrees with me when I say rogues are boring.

Its the lying crap he says about how I dont understand agro and playing the class. There is a difference between disliking the senerio, and not understanding the senerio. I Understand how it works - I just dont like it(and the title of this thread shows that Blizz agrees there is a problem.)
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Sorry, going to disagree with you here majorly. I'm hardly a slacker when it comes to Rogues (though I didn't get 60 this past week because of Spring Break and skiing in Canada :P). My group is working on BRD right now, 5-manning it with 2 hunters, 2 priests and a rogue. It may take forever, but we'll get it. Even without a tank, my aggro management is not a problem. If I hold back at all, it's either just waiting a second or using Stuns instead of Ambush/Eviscerates. I have never had aggro problems with the Rogue, and I rarely hold back.

You're wrong when it comes too what Blizzard has agreed upon too. Aggro management is not the issue with Rogues. Being "boring" is not the issue with Rogues. Rogues taking damage when they don't have aggro is the issue. A rogue's objective in groups is DPS. Things dying quicker makes it easier on everyone else. But Rogues can't do it from range, which means priests have to waste mana healing for AoEs. If I have a Mage, a Hunter, and a Rogue with two spots left, chances are I'd leave out the Rogue. It's just safer for the group. What Blizzard has agreed upon is not about Aggro problems. It's about their utility skills never being needed (Lockpicking, Disarm Trap, Detect Trap) and their melee-only fighitng simply being too close to AoE when you can choose a Mage or Hunter instead.

Think of it this way: while reading one group's story of taking on Onyxia (to 1/4th life IIRC, this was back in December or January), they talked about the warriors kept aggro the entire time the tanks lived. Onyxia didn't flinch once. And that's without taunts to save the over-aggressive Rogues, Mages, etc.

[acidjax]

In this thread I agree with a lot of the things said regarding agro management. However, going back to the original post I think the issue is that raid content is different then 5-man instances and that certain classes (rogue) are less useful in them. 5-man instances and raid content are different beasts.

I consider "raid content" to be primarily Onyxia and Molten Core though I suppose you could count UBRS as well. Molten Core takes the longest time to complete out of all of these.

So it's not that you can't go all out. It's do you want to be done with the instance without having to let the priests drink every fight, or can they even keep up with your life? I don't know many rogues who are geared for taking hits over doing damage. And if you're dead, you're doing no damage versus slightly below your maximum.[right][snapback]70640[/snapback][/right]

The difference between killing kobolds and killing gods is how you approach the fight. If you go at it guns blazing, as a dps class, you're going to pull aggro and die. And in doing so, you've weakened the whole of the raid.
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When I'm in a group with my rogue I have no problems holding back when it helps. Unfortunately, due to the current design of Molten Core, holding back in there means I am quite a bit less useful then practically every other class. I feel as if I could help the raid better by getting pretty much any other class to take my place. Classes that fight in melee range generally take a lot more damage regardless of whether they have agro of the monsters or not. In Molten Core, damage is mostly all a rogue can offer.

It is by design that in Molten Core:
-trash mobs frequently use point blank (yet not ranged) AoE attacks for around 750-1000 per hit (instant cast)
-most (all?) mobs are immune to stuns
-most (all?) mobs are immune to poisons
-expose armor doesn't stack with sunder which is one of a warrior's best single-target hate generation choices

It is also by design that rogues:
-do not make good long duration tanks
-cannot heal
-cannot reliably assist in wipe recovery
-cannot buff
-do not provide good dps from range (in comparison to other classes)

To make a crude comparison between a mage and a rogue in Molten Core you could say:
1) A rogue can provide 125% the sustained damage while requiring 10x the healing of a mage.
2) A rogue can provide 33% the sustained damage while requiring the same amount of healing as a mage.

[Guest]

Hehe.

"Perhaps you can't have it both ways. When Battlegrounds comes out, people will be looking for Rogues constantly."

Im guessing that mostly the raid grouping attitude will be returned. Guilds that do instances with their rogues will have rogues to group with. Most rogues will only want to group with Druids though.

But I supect that mages will in time be seen as the other PvP powerhouses. The ability to jump off a horse and sheep another rider will be gold.




You arent wrong to say that the real problem with rogues is the instances - not the class. But really rogues arent that great in groups anywhere. But since rogues can solo everywhere else no one complains.

This leads to another issue - lvls 1-59 are different game than lvl 60, so what seems good whiole leveling may show weakness in the end. Likewise what is balanced in the end may seem rather gimp while leveling.