On Twitter: Patch 5.3 Rogue PvP Changes Are Likely Done, Holinka Suggests

And with this, PvP rogues may finally have a chance to exhale. Or to take a breath between howls over the planned class nerfs.

@fate47 happy with rogue/hunter changes. Still talking about affliction, holy pally and mage.

—
Holinka (@holinka) May 07, 2013

Obviously, this shouldn’t be taken to mean that the door is finally closed on the rogue adjustments for Patch 5.3; the developers may well change their minds, and there’s always a chance that they decided on additional changes last week and we just haven’t seen them yet. But this strongly suggests that the end of rogue PvP nerfs is in sight.

It also strongly suggests, of course, that any PvP buffs folks may have been hoping for to offset the nerfs probably won’t be happening for Patch 5.3 either.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing: The reactions I’ve seen in forums from rogue PvP players run the gamut from “these are minor and expected changes that won’t gut me” to “this is so catastrophic for rogues that I’m cancelling my subscription and burning my house down,” and everything in between. That wide range of opinions leads me to suspect that, in competitive arena, we may well see rogues dip a bit in terms of their presence within top rankings. But we’re probably not looking at anything resembling the barren pre-Patch 5.2 landscape, particularly not given the adjustments being made to other classes — or the adjustments that may yet be made to other classes, as Holinka suggests in the tweet above.

It’ll be interesting to see the effect that all of these changes — to rogues, to other classes (especially hunters) and to PvP Power — have on popular arena comps. It can be hard to predict which classes/specs really synergize well with one another until arena players have really had a chance to dive in and check out all the changes, which tends not to happen until the patch actually goes live. (The devs have noted previously that players tend to spend very little time on the PTR testing PvP changes in arena, so the changes they make to their initial patch plans are based more on theory and feedback than on actual play data.)

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4/25 WoW Developer Chat: Rogue-ish Questions That Were Kinda, Sorta Answered

In an impressive display of team question-answering efficiency, a full set of Blizzard’s senior WoW developers addressed dozens of q’s across a wide range of issues in tonight’s Live Developer Q&A. Although a good number of questions and their answers might be pertinent for rogue players (particularly the numerous questions on PvP crowd control and instant heals), there were only a few in particular that I felt had particularly focused rogue relevance.

I doubt any of these responses will make many rogue players especially happy. Particularly not if you’re a PvE player; Ghostcrawler seemed to avoid answering (or moderators avoided giving him) just about any class-specific questions. Brian Holinka (whose WoW forum avatar is apparently named Desvin — did we know this before?), by contrast, answered a number of class-specific questions — but they were obviously all specifically about PvP issues.

The rogue-relevant responses Holinka gave are vague but arguably realistic; most of them basically amount to an admission that devs are aware of the issue that was raised, but that there isn’t really much they feel they can ultimately do at the moment to truly make that particular problem better that they haven’t already done — nor do they have a vision to share about how they might try to change it in the future.

I’ll copy the q’s and a’s below for posterity, though. Because posterity is superfun. (For the full chat transcript, take a look at the original source, at Wowhead’s topically sorted listing or MMO-Champion’s slightly differently topically sorted listing. As I noted, there were several questions about crowd control and cast times that I chose not to include here.)

 

Q (Skilledguy): Combat Rogue is clearly not a good spec for PvP atm at all, sustained dmg is barely noticable, there is no possible ‘no cd burst’ possibility by design, Killing Spree is jumping on pets/minions, hardly usable in 3v3. Are you gonna bother trying to fix this spec for PvP or just focus on Subtlety?

A (Brian Holinka): It’s challenging to make all 3 specs of a pure DPS equally viable in both PvP and PvE. In most cases, we want to ensure that at least one of those specs is competitive and improve the others when possible. It is a lot harder to change class than change spec, but we appreciate that players do enjoy some specs more than others.

 

Q (<Anonymous>): I understand that making all 34 specs viable for pvp would be a mess from the design and even from player PoV. But some cases were the specs differences are minimal (fury and combat/assa come to mind) seems like it’s just lack of interest on your part… Can we expect some philosophy change on that matter?

A (Brian Holinka): If we can do something to make a spec more competitive we do, but class balance is heavily intertwined. Buffs to one spec often act as nerfs to another spec and vice versa.

 

Q (Sean Maples): Why do you balance (or try to!) around Arena, yet reward more for RBGS? Melee cant get into RBGs! Its unfair that casters get a gear advantage in arena for being Overpowered in RBGs.

A (Brian Holinka): The synergy between spells like death grip, solar beam and ursol’s vortex has created an environment where melee are at a big disadvantage. We have been working on reducing the effectiveness of that combination without destroying those specs in other areas of the game.

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On Twitter: Are More Shado-Pan Trinket Changes Coming?

[UPDATE 4/18: More changes were indeed coming. And then they came. And now they're here.]

Last week, a Patch 5.2 hotfix reduced the Agility proc on the new PvE Valor trinket, the Vicious Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault, by 21.5% in PvP situations. (This was *not* a Patch 5.3 PTR note, incidentally; the change is actually live.)

The change was intended to reduce the amount of burst that DPS classes/specs were able to deal to other players while the proc was active. But was it enough? Was it even… maybe… dare we say… too much?

HeckifIknow. But WoW PvP master Brian Holinka has been fielding a lot of tweets about the trinket since the hotfix. Here’s a dump (in date order) of all of them to date, for you to peruse and ponder at your temporal preference.

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On Twitter: Did Shuriken Toss Make Deadly Throw OP?

I mentioned a few days ago that lead PvP guru Brian Holinka had tweeted our clearest hint yet that Shuriken Toss was likely to get a nerf sometime soonish, due to its strength in significantly harming manned enemy pixels. This exchange earlier today may give us an idea for what sort of nerf we can expect:

@clemik99 We feel rogue CP generation is too high at ranged. Made Deadly Throw change OP

—
Holinka (@holinka) April 03, 2013

(The “Deadly Throw” change Holinka is referring to is a Patch 5.2 buff that made DT’s interrupt/spell lockout work when used at 3-5 combo points, instead of only at 5.)

So, if Shuriken Toss damage is a concern in PvP (as Holinka noted in his previous tweet), and ST’s rapid combo point generation makes DT too powerful in PvP as well, I’m thinking the logical move would be to increase the energy cost for Shuriken Toss (perhaps to ~35 energy or so). Of course, I say that with virtually no understanding of PvP balance, so take that prediction with a bucket of salt.

I’d also be sad to see such an energy-cost increase happen from a PvE questing standpoint, because ST has proven to be tremendously useful in dailies, particularly when trying to solo some of those Isle of Thunder rares.

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On Twitter: Ghostcrawler Briefly Wades Into the Feral-vs.-Rogue Scrum (UPDATED)

I feel a little silly posting this one, since it feels like there’s virtually nothing worth talking about — besides how sad it makes me to see how snide people on the Web can be in so few characters with so little cause.

 

@EvilAipac One ability compared to another ability doesn't scale to one class' comparison to another. It's about the whole package.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 14, 2012

 

I mean, really, dude(tte)? I get you’re passionate about the game and you want our class to 1) do well and 2) feel unique from other classes. And I think the discussion about ways in which ferals and rogues are similar — and whether it’s “fair” for ferals to do certain things better than rogues can — is an interesting one to have. But there are way better ways to express your concerns about cross-class imbalances than by sprinkling a miasma of bitter, accusatory sarcasm on top of it.

This person, incidentally, appears to have just created this account a little over a week ago and, from a quick look at the tweet history, has been almost entirely using it to repeatedly shred into Ghostcrawler for what he (apparently personally) did to rogues in this expansion. Somebody needs a serious bunch of huggy wuggies.

———————

UPDATE 12/14 1pm ET:

When I tweeted this blog entry, GC responded:

 

@SvelteKumquat I wasn't commenting on RvD, but on comparing one ability in a vacuum to another. R talents in 5.2 prob have the most changes.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 14, 2012

 

The first part of that tweet is a fair clarification, though I’m not gonna change the title of this post. :) The second part appears mostly unrelated to the rest of the conversation (well, beyond the thematic tie-in of @EvilAipac’s general “I’m pissed about rogues right now and want to see changes” tone), and raises my virtual eyebrows about just how deep the upcoming changes are going to go for our humble little class.

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On Twitter: Ghostcrawler on What Drives (Rogue) Population Numbers, and Why There’s More Retribution Paladins Than Rogues (Updated 12/11)

The podcast mentioned below is a reference to GC’s Dec. 5 interview on All Things Azeroth, which I’ll write more about below these tweets.

 

@Lars_Carnegie Players quick to assume balance drives class %s. After looking at 8 years of data, we don't think it's a major factor.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 06, 2012

@Lars_Carnegie We think kit, fun, visuals, doing something special and flexibility are probably bigger drivers.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 06, 2012

@Lars_Carnegie Not saying balance isn't important to fun, just that it prob doesn't drive class pop as much as many players assume.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 06, 2012

 

A smattering of rogue players went a little wacky on the WoW forums when GC made his comment about there being fewer rogues than Ret pallies, as though he had made the statement to mean… well, anything at all in relation to rogues, really. In actuality, GC was responding to a tongue-in-cheek question about why he hates paladins so much.

Here’s the full quote:

The paladin thing is really funny — I honestly think it is just because there are so many freaking paladins out there. At times, probably right now, there are more Retribution paladins than there are rogues. So, anytime you do anything to the paladin class, there’s this enormous uprising, because they feel like they’re being picked on, even though they’re actually the majority of players out there. And I think, since then, it’s just kind of become a running joke that Ghostcrawler plays a mage and hates paladins. Neither of which is true.

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Twitter: Ghostcrawler doesn’t like whiners, notes state of rogue PvE/PvP (updated)

@jamesfromvenice: “@Ghostcrawler What do you think of ROGUE SURVIVAL? Plez no canned repsonses. Imho, CD’s R outdated/ineffectual. Easy to bait em’, then dead”

@jamesfromvenice: “@Ghostcrawler PLAY a rogue in arena & bgs. You have no idea the lack of mobility, Survival. So frustrating. It really is. Its not fun at all”

@Ghostcrawler: “@jamesfromvenice it sounds like you don’t really want my opinion, just a list of upcoming buffs.”

@lmaoshane: @Ghostcrawler Are you looking at buffing Rogues though? Because as it is, they’ve fallen behind in dps AND survivability in most areas now.

@Ghostcrawler: @lmaoshane rogues are fine in PvE. We want small buffs for PvP.

Twitterized 11/20 and 11/25/2012

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Twitter: Ghostcrawler on making rogue stealth harder to break

@esbgame: “@Ghostcrawler Do you think abilities such as Destro Rain of Fire or Halo should break Rogue’s stealth? And if so why? It’s too easy to break”

@Ghostcrawler: “@esbgame I would love to see only Flare and a few others break stealth, but that’s a potentially destabilizing change.”

Twitterized 11/21/2012

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Twitter: Ghostcrawler on rogue PvP

@qoralswp: “@Ghostcrawler @Bricke4 You think rogues are fine in PvP?”

@Ghostcrawler: “@qoralswp We think PvP rogues are low in 5.0. Why bring a rogue if a warrior brings more? We think 5.1 will be a better environment.”

Twitterized 11/17/2012

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Twitter: Ghostcrawler on hating rogues

@Starbuck_OS: “@Ghostcrawler Admit it dude, you have something against rogues, only logic behind the hideous job you are doing “balancing”"

@Ghostcrawler: “@Starbuck_OS Do you really think arbitrarily picking on some classes would be a logical way to design a game?”

Twitterized 11/15/2012

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