Wrath of the Lich King Rogue News from the Weekend – Nov. 3rd

Rogues got some developer Q/A as well but once again, I’m no Rogue expert. All I know is that they do fine in PVP if not amazing, and the same can be said for leveling and raid DPS. So why all the complaints?

Developers Q&A (Source)
1. With the reworking of “tanking” stats the rogue ability to dodge as a primary form of melee damage reduction has been significantly reduced to levels which impair their survivability in PvP, it is feared. What is Blizzard’s position, and possible compensation for the reduction in the rogues ability to dodge?
You could be refering to one of two things — the higher dodge ratings required, in which case you’ll eventually catch up with good gear, or the diminishing returns at very high avoidance rating, but in those cases they are just diminishing returns. Your dodge does still increase.

We’re not too worried about rogue survival in PvP at the current time. Rogues still have plenty of tricks. We do think PvP is a little bursty overall at level 70, but the recent change in resilience and the higher health pools at level 80 should help that.

2. With the removal of the snare negating effect on shadowstep, there are concerns about the mobility of rogues in a PvP environment where utility is just as important as damage. At the very least many players feel obligated to try and acquire the improved sprint talent lest waste cooldowns normally reserved for other aspects of combat, e.g. Cloak of shadows to break frost nova. With the emphasis and ability of many classes to snare, hamstring, slow, and chill with little to no cooldown increasing, how do the developers plan to compensate in the mobility of melee classes, especially when our mobility is specifically being reduced and the prevalence of snares is increasing?
Again, your question is all about compensation. We don’t know that any is needed. Rogues were a very good PvP class in BC and Cloak was either overpowered or bordering on overpowered for a lot of that time.

3. We understand that play style of a class may change, and change is scary for us all. Hemorrhage has been a main attack for almost four year and we understand it is to be considered a debuff attack in the upcoming expansion. It has been the general consensus that the debuff is rather insignificant to be a dedicated supportive roll in the realm of PvP combat. What do the developers think about the debuff and damage provided by the hemorrhage ability with respect to PvP combat? Are there any plans to either increase the debuff to resemble those available to other classes or uphold and restore the ability’s role as a primary attack within the configuration of certain builds?
As a debuff, it can still account for a lot of damage. Usually when rogues complain about it, it’s because it isn’t boosting their personal damage enough (because other players are using all the charges). On that last part, players may use it as a primary attack, but that doesn’t mean we designed it to be.

4. Finally, as will all new programs and games there are bugs to work out, and the rogue community is fairly adamant about issues with the proper function of stealth and vanish. Are the programmers and developers aware of any particular bugs or problems with the workings of stealth and vanish and is so are steps being taken, as I imagine they would be, to rectify the situation?
One could write several volumes on the epic adventures of Vanish. Here is how I think the story goes: Players were convinced for a long time that there were bugs with Vanish. We finally got a few good cases where we could repro the problem and those were fixed (say sometime post-Sunwell). There may still be some edge cases where it still happens. I believe those are more rare, but some players are so used to the concept of Vanish being bugged that they assume nothing has ever changed. It’s one of those jokes that has become larger than life (almost like Ony deep breathing more).

There were some more recent legitimate stealth bugs, at least in PvP. We just fixed several of them. I can’t recall if those were hotfixed or not. ~end

Cloak of Shadows
Whenever we have seen a problem like this in Cloak, it is usually because the CoS is used after the target spell is cast but before it lands. Because of the way the Internet itself is built, split-second timing like this is very subject to latency problems. Even if you think you hit the button in time, the Internet disagrees with you.

We’ll take a look at Cloak of Shadows though and make sure it isn’t being affected incorrectly by diminishing returns though. (src)