Response To Idejder’s Rogue Balance Changes

http://www.gameriot.com/blogs/WoWs-Balance-Blogs/WoW-Class-Balance-Rogue/



Normally I don’t pay attention to balance suggestions, but Idejder has a proven track record of being able to accurately predict upcoming patch notes, and he has done it time and time again. I will let his article do the talking, but if everything he posts goes through I will be in heaven! Kalgan’s gorgeous Asian girlfriend plays a level 70 rogue and I think the man finally had a chance to experience the frustration of playing a rogue himself. All hail to the nameless heroine of the rogue community! I don’t believe all of these will make the final patch, but even if half of the bolded changes went through, we will be looking at a very competitive class going forward.



I only went for changes that will have a significant impact on actual match-ups. For bug fixes and minor tweaks please read his full article.



1) Blind is now a Physical effect with a cooldown of 95 seconds. Elusiveness reduces cooldown by 15/30 seconds. Blind no longer requires a reagent.



This will greatly increase rogue’s arena utility. Wow, a 10 second CC that can not be removed by anything other than PVP trinket. Remember when I said rogue brings nothing unique to the table? This will be our signature ability. It is the trump card that will force people to either save their PVP trinket for blind and eat full duration fear/sheep, or be CCed for 10 seconds at a critical time which is an eternity in high level play.



2) Envenom is now usable with Wound Poison and consumes the stack when used.



Will finally put Envenom on a PVP rogue’s toolbar, and offers a nice high damage finisher against heavy armor when you are trying to burst them down with caster DPS.



3) Shadowstep is now usable in combat and roots the target for 2 seconds.



Finally a great 41 pointer! This will opens up a lot of possibilities between blind on a super low cooldown to CC one healer, then immediately shadowstep to a paladin to kick his heal. Shadowstep rogue will require most skills to play, but potentially most rewarding.



4) Sprint duration changed to 5 seconds, cooldown changed to 60 seconds, and for the duration the rogue ignores any snares on him (they persist and re-snare after the effect ends).

5) Endurance now lowers the sprint cooldown by 12/25 seconds.

6) Fleetfooted now passively increases your movement speed by 20% instead of 8%. This effect does not stack with other movement increasing effects.



If nothing else went through except these three changes, I will be extremely happy! Mobility is the biggest problem I have playing a rogue. Last night I played some 2v2 with Ramius and sure enough we ran into warrior/paladin three games in a row. I am sure everyone know the drill by now. Both me and paladin have freedom, warrior intercepts me for 3 seconds, paladin runs away, and from there I can never catch him again outside of ONE measly sprint every 5 minutes, while taking full damage from the warrior. Cripple shiv and finally get some distance? Another intercept usually into a mace stun and I lost another large chunk of my health without doing any damage to the paladin.



With these changes improved sprint and fleet footed will make it much, much harder to kite a rogue in long games. The 20% fleet footed doesn’t help you at all when you are slowed by frost armor or hamstring, but it will ensure when both you and the target have freedom, you can actually catch him. Of course, this will also make 41/20 mutilate the best rogue arena spec by a large margin, as snare removal is huge for dagger rogues. I have no problem with it, I truly believe dagger should be the strongest rogue PVP spec, as it requires more skill to play.



Rogue doesn’t have to do more damage or be more durable, in fact I believe we are fine on both ends. It is the fact that despite of being designed as light melee, our heavy melee equivalent can stay on his target MUCH easier than us!



Kalgan’s girlfriend, if you get these changes approved, I will send you a dozen roses. The rogue community will forever be grateful to you.