Talent builder for WotLK alpha

[Scaffa]

Originally Posted by Kaxmax

You just said it yourself, the WoW rogue is not a traditional rogue, it makes no fucking difference what other games do.

Unfortunately this is spot on. I played rogue since Beta 3 and always expected to be running around with daggers the entire game, I eventually hit 60 as daggers and was quite surprised at how quickly every other spec levelled compared to me. It's basically a waste of time and always has been.

The only times I saw daggers as being much better were at 60, assuming you had a Perdition / CHT combo which iirc was better until you had CTS. After that, the only people I *ever* saw with daggers were rank 14 already abusing pre-normalised ambush.

If they ever do put in hero classes ("six months after release, tops!") they should just slam in Brawler for rogues and get it over with. Increase character size 15%, stealth level -5, douple AP from STR or whatever.

[Mist]

Daggers are going to make a huge comeback in PvP at level 80 so the discussion is kinda moot.

[Makata]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Honestly the only way I can see them making the two 'balanced' against eachother is adding some deep Assassination talents that add huge rogue utility to the raid. Like a dagger only poison that increases all DoT damage to a mob by 20% and improved-improved kidney shot that ignores mob immunity with a 1 minute hidden cooldown or something.

How exactly does that fix combat daggers? Honestly, fuck the other 2 trees for anything but flavor or pvp .. combat should be the one and only major pve tree considering how many invaluable passives it has.

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Ambush and pvp.

You're right, letting daggers be slower means you'd be able to ambush for 27% of the target's health not just 23!!! Clearly a balance issue.

Originally Posted by Mist

Backstab being bad is overall good for rogues anyway, since no one wants to hit one button every 6 seconds.

Don't make sweeping generalizations if they're not true. Backstab was my only non-stealth combo point generator from 1 to 70 and for most of 70. I loved it and actually stopped being interested in my rogue when I had to switch out of daggers.

Originally Posted by Kaxmax

How many combat rogues do you see attacking from the front in raids?

There's a difference between not being able to and being able to at a small penalty. Plus mobs that move or have gigantic hit boxes, have fun always staying at the back.

You just said it yourself, the WoW rogue is not a traditional rogue, it makes no fucking difference what other games do.

Thus the problem.

[Plorkyeran]

Originally Posted by Goofy

2) Whether its boring or not is subjective. But a skill that requires you to constantly be in 1 position to do damage compared to a skill where you can just be anywhere to use SHOULD NOT HAVE THE SAME DAMAGE OUTPUT.

Any rogue that spend a nontrivial amount of time attacking from the front is going to be kicked from the raid pretty quickly for killing the tank. If anything, these days backstab's positional requirement is an extra bit of retard protection, not a drawback.

Originally Posted by Scaffa

The only times I saw daggers as being much better were at 60, assuming you had a Perdition / CHT combo which iirc was better until you had CTS. After that, the only people I *ever* saw with daggers were rank 14 already abusing pre-normalised ambush.

Daggers were vastly better in Naxx for non-humans until 2.0 came out. ACLG + DS was enough to cap your dagger skill while giving up very little other stats, which wasn't an option with swords.

[Goofy]

erm. The problem is not standing at the front. The problem is you can stand anywhere versus a skill that needs to always face the back of the mob.

You obviously have never fought as a backstabber before because wow isn't tank and spank anymore. If you thinnk that facing the back of the mob is as easy you're also wrong.

[Murr]

Coming from somebody who used daggers from release up until I picked up two S2 gladiator swords when S2 came out, I couldn't see myself going back if I picked the game up for the expansion..

If you want to make it a viable PVE spec, cool, but PvP with daggers is the worst thing ever given WoW's relative inaccuracy with regards to player position/rotation. I don't miss that AT ALL.

[TheYanger]

Er..Swords were not always arguably better, maybe theorycrafting, but in reality they weren't competetive until Naxx (No, not even with a Vis'kag, the itemization gap for daggers and swords was huge for MC through AQ).

Also, facing the front of a mob is NOT a problem - I'm in a raiding guild, I don't buy it. I specced mutilate when 2.4 came out to mess with it (Swords haven't dropped for us much, but I had a Shard of Azzinoth and Tracker's Blade so figured why not). Being behind a mob is NEVER a problem, and no, it's not a 'small' penalty, it's a huge one because you're begging to parry-gib your tank if you retardedly stand in front, not just gimp your DPS by a LARGE amount (15% parries or something? Yeah that sounds smart).

That being said, just because Makata is a freaking moron doesn't mean that it isn't sad that daggers are so pitiful. I don't care if you don't like daggers, they ARE a part of the rogue class - yes SS/swords/maces/fists should all be viable, but we have an entire tree devoted to using daggers, not just one 5 point skill, we have 2 of our primary abilities REQUIRE daggers (Mutilate too though it's a talent so I don't count that). Just because daggers have sucked for 2 years does NOT mean 'lol daggers aren't for rogues in wow nub' it just means the developers fucked up, plain and simple. And yes. I do believe daggers should be slightly superior, I know soloing doesn't enter into raid dps, but soloing as daggers is retarded compared to using swords, and it has to make up for it somewhere. No, it's not holy priest smite spam bad, but it's pretty awful. I would rather go devastate spam shit on my warrior alt who has basically ONLY tank gear than go play combat daggers solo again.

I don't think anyone who doesn't play a rogue can really relate to having one of your two primary attacks completely worthless (three if you want to count shiv now), It would be like if Steady Shot required throwing weapons or Mortal Strike required one handers, you'd feel cheated.

The only other class that can relate right now is Warlocks, who are an awesome class with cool dots and curses and all of that...and they spam Shadowbolt. Yes they kick fucking ass, just like rogues, but that is so counter to what the class should be it's ridiculous and they all know it. Same thing for us and SS spam.

[Kevincheese]

1. Meh at rogues.

2. New sham talents are making me hot for my class again.

Will finally actually want to put that last point into the enhance tree, too, instead of whoring out NS.

[Plorkyeran]

Originally Posted by Goofy

erm. The problem is not standing at the front. The problem is you can stand anywhere versus a skill that needs to always face the back of the mob.

You obviously have never fought as a backstabber before because wow isn't tank and spank anymore. If you thinnk that facing the back of the mob is as easy you're also wrong.

There is no spot where you cannot be parried and still cannot backstab. If you are in a position where you cannot backstab a boss, you should not even have autoattack on unless you like causing wipes.

[Lost Ranger]

Originally Posted by Makata

Don't make sweeping generalizations if they're not true.

Rofl!

[Deathwing]

Originally Posted by Kevincheese

1. Meh at rogues.

2. New sham talents are making me hot for my class again.

Will finally actually want to put that last point into the enhance tree, too, instead of whoring out NS.

Really? I thought the shaman ones are kind of lack luster except for the resto ones. The resto ones are really good except they seem to go in opposite directions. One says "you're an AE healer" while the other says "you're a single target healer".

Actually, now that I look at it, all of the healing talents for the 3 classes released so far are really good. The tank ones aren't QUITE that good, but still nothing to get upset about at this part of the game.

Hope they can translate this to the numerous dps trees.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Plorkyeran

There is no spot where you cannot be parried and still cannot backstab. If you are in a position where you cannot backstab a boss, you should not even have autoattack on unless you like causing wipes.

Parry hasting has been disabled on a lot of bosses actually so it's not as much an issue. However, the parry rate is a significant impact on DPS and most fights are now dps races.

That being said being behind the mob isn't too terribly difficult. The problem is that a lot of tank movement is required which means you could get thrown out of rotation now and then. Which isn't that great of an issue either.

Honestly you need to stop thinking of "Combat daggers" as a viable spec. Dagger spec should be moved to assassination, assassination should be turned into a heavy raid augmentation tree (Personally I feel Hemo should be assasination among the other example talents I listed previously).

I think it would round out the class nicely. It's what I feel arcane tree should be for mages as well. A heavy raid utility tree. Universally reviled as the 'gimp spec.'

[The Ancient]

Every DPS class should have a utility 'gimp' spec that you can force new applicants into.

[Makata]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Honestly you need to stop thinking of "Combat daggers" as a viable spec. Dagger spec should be moved to assassination, assassination should be turned into a heavy raid augmentation tree (Personally I feel Hemo should be assasination among the other example talents I listed previously).

Which would mean giving up: Surprise Attacks, Combat Potency, AR, Weapon Expertise, and depending on what you wanted from sub possibly BF, DW spec and even Precision. I am not willing to give up any of these, nor should I have to. Using a dagger is not a spec unto itself. You should be able to focus your points into any tree and be able to use daggers.

[Zerai]

Originally Posted by Makata

Which would mean giving up: Surprise Attacks, Combat Potency, AR, Weapon Expertise, and depending on what you wanted from sub possibly BF, DW spec and even Precision. I am not willing to give up any of these, nor should I have to. Using a dagger is not a spec unto itself. You should be able to focus your points into any tree and be able to use daggers.

It's like speccing in Arms and expecting to use DW. Zehn has the right of it.