There was an article on wowinsider today, (linky), that without any detail or explanation suggests giving rogues the shaman bloodlust buff to improve our raid utility. This demonstrates that the writer understands nothing about rogues. Apart from this, his basic reasoning is unsound. He wants to solve the problem of there not being enough shamans around to hand out the bloodlust buff by giving it to the currently most underplayed class according to his research. If you wanted to spread a bit more bloodlust around, surely this wouldn’t be the way to do it.
The article is facile. The argument that it generated was slightly more interesting. But time and again the comments revealed a complete lack of understanding of rogue raid utility and why people play a rogue in present day WoW. So why are rogues so underplayed as a dps class as opposed to say Death Knights or Hunters? The answer is instant gratification. People play the game for different reasons. Some people get satisfaction out of doing things slowly, by discovering the best way to do things, by getting the most out of their chosen class. Other players have less time or patience for this sort of approach in what is, in effect, just a game. They want to go in swinging now and they want to get great results. A lot of the hybrid classes and some of the pure dps classes are like this. You can spam a few buttons and you can achieve relatively good dps results for your average play. Don’t get me wrong; take the time to learn the class well and your results will be much better. But a large number of players just want to get results now. They want instant gratification. Which is fine.
Unless you play a rogue.
Do not expect to play a rogue and achieve good results by spamming sinister strike. Our class is all about learning its secrets. Which poisons go on which hand, what are the best rotations, what abilities should you always keep up, how should you gear up, what weapons should you use, how to manage your cool-downs correctly. It can get so involved that we need excel spreadsheets to sort it all out. I have seen two rogues equipped with very similar gear go into a raid and score vastly different dps all based on skill and ability. Playing a rogue rewards effort. It’s not about spamming a few buttons and then bringing a raid buff as well. Those are the instant gratification classes.
Which is why our raid utility is dps. If you play a rogue properly, if you take the time to learn the ins and outs of the class, then you will be rewarded with very high raid dps. Your ability will be recognised and rewarded with guaranteed raid spots. A lot of players complained that they couldn’t get a raid spot as a rogue. Well, I’m sorry to tell you this but that’s because you couldn’t play the class well enough. Which is why the number of rogues has dropped as those instant gratification players have moved to death knights and the like.
But here is why the writer of that article doesn’t get rogues. We don’t want a raid buff. We’re perfectly happy with where we are and we’re perfectly happy with the fact that not many people are playing rogues. They’re not playing rogues because they aren’t able to. They need to bring a buff to the raid because a lot of the time that’s the only reason they’ll get in. Which is the great beauty and satisfaction of playing a rogue. It’s the opposite of the instant gratification classes. We are the ones who must put in the time and effort to learn our class and improve as players. We have to, it’s the only way to play the class well. And so when you score high dps, when you get a raid spot, it’s because you earned it. This class caters for the player who wants to put the effort into their game-play. Trying to cheapen it with offering a raid-wide buff would be terrible for us. So please Blizzard, keep it as it is. We’re a small player group, but we love our class.
May 6, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Well said overall. The rogue community is small but we are dedicated and we love our little stabbers. I believe a lot of people overlook the utility we do bring (and we do bring some). Tricks of the Trade while mostly used to up our dps when trading with another rogue can be of great use to tanks. The buffs provided by Master Poisoner and Savage Combat are essential, yes they can be provided by other classes (Ret Pallys and Arms Warriors respectively) but that can be said of any buff.
Personally, I’m very happy with the state of Rogues post-3.1. I’m seeing a lot of yellow at the top of the DPS board. Stay the course for now, I say.
Oh and giving us Bloodlust is just stupid.
May 7, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Yeah, I couldn’t be happier. Good rogues are shining once again, both in raids and arena’s, (I’ve heard that every team in the top 10 2v2 teams are rogue/priest.) Patch 3.1 will be remembered as a happy time. Thanks for mentioning our other aspects of raid utility, which are completely correct. I kind of passed over them whilst being dazed with this Bloodlust nonsense.
May 8, 2009 at 5:04 am
I was going to post on WoWInsider in response to this but decided against it in the interests time, as I would have submitted a 16 page dissertation on the utter failness of the suggestion.
So, in short, I agree this is a dumb, dumb idea.
As well as doing the stabby, the best rogues I know are the silent achievers – the ones that do the kicking, the feinting, the bandaging and potting, the cloaking and tricking, all the things that don’t directly affect the yellow at the top of the recount window but do directly affect the wipe ratio. Good raid leaders know this. Good rogues get invites.
Nice blog, added to blogroll
September 29, 2009 at 6:26 am
This is exactly why I began playing a shaman. Managing totems, weapon buffs, and weapon enchants along with normal gearing and gemming questions (which are also a little zonky for shaman) creates a big gap between the good shaman and the bad ones. In pvp likewise, good shaman are the exception, particularly enhancement spec as their mobility issues really handicap them in arena and BGs, so I can understand your, albeit slightly masochistic, devotion to your rogue. Oddly enough, my first character was a rogue, I raided with her in vanilla wow but quit out of boredom, as all that was required of me to get 1 or 2 on the dps meter was stand behind a raid boss with my perdition`s blade and a Corehound tooth and mash the backstab button, then if the mob even blinked hit vanish, and maybe use built up combat points from time to time during energy starved periods.
Now that I`ve read this, I might bring that rogue out of retirement and go ahead and get her up to 80, I`ve been a little listless on my shammy lately.