There are few rogue-shaped horses that are more dead right now than the issue of removing Preparation, the most meta ability in our toolkit (a cooldown that resets cooldowns).
The topic resurrects itself periodically around new expansions, discussions about revamping rogue gameplay, and when upcoming patches tweak the list of abilities Prep impacts. In Patch 5.2, we’re going to see Cloak of Shadows removed from the Prep list (CoS’s cooldown will be halved to compensate). When we learned of that, the WoW forums wept with rogues’ calls for Prep’s elimination from the game.
A couple of weeks ago, I highlighted a few Twitter exchanges in which Ghostcrawler briefly explained why he thought Prep should stay (and offered my own take). But not everyone reads the twitterses. Or is satisfied with what they read there.
So, the topic was raised again within the uberthread “PTR Class and Set Bonus Issues, Part II” over in the official WoW forums. Last week, GC decided to use the opportunity to say more on the subject than can fit into those teeny tweetboxes.
I don’t think we’d remove Prep. Would the design be stronger without Prep and lowered cooldowns? Possibly. But we’re convinced what would happen is that all the rogues that love Prep for whatever reason would come out of the woodwork. It’s been a core ability forever and all that. Years from now when we did threads asking players what to fix about their class, I’m convinced we’d see “Bring back Prep!” I really don’t mean to sound cynical; I’m trying to sound practical.
I know many of you are smart players and you expect all players to be just as logical and objective and see that there is no massive difference between a cooldown that finishes the cooldown or other spells and those spells all having shorter cooldowns. I don’t think the reaction would be universal praise though.
I still feel this is more about the design team’s uncertainty over whether it’s a “good idea” or not to remove Prep. If they were convinced it was, I think they’d do it regardless of any abstract concerns about an indeterminate number of rogues being sad.
They just need to bite the bullet. Preparation forces things to be balanced around potential double use, and chaining. Now, one more survival tool is removed from it.
The main problem with it. remains: If you haven’t used everything before Prep. you are wasting stuff. However, our resource system and playstyle is all about being economical with our actions. You don’t wanna cap out on Energy. You don’t wanna overcap Combo Points. You want to balance your resources at all times. Prep. is philosophically contrasting the basic premise of our class mechanics. Often using it is beneficial, but you have still wasted potential.
Abilities balanced around shorter CDs, or even putting charges on them, that’s the way of the future. ’bout time to get Rogues up to date.