On Twitter: Watch What You Wish for With Energy Regeneration

A “The More You Know” moment from Ghostcrawler:

@theonerayman Our vision for rogues is not to have enough energy to fill every GCD. That makes energy not a thing.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) February 16, 2013

Obviously, this is an oversimplified answer in response to an over-the-top question: I hope that few, if any, reasonable players think that rogue design should revolve always having a button to hit after every global cooldown. In addition, the loudest and most numerous complaints about rogue “slowness” took place 1) early in the expansion and 2) particularly for Assassination rogues, whose main combo point builder (Mutilate) costs a whole mess of energy, meaning a fair amount of wait time between button mashes (and even more wait time if you don’t use Rupture to increase the chance of free energy procs via Venemous Wounds).

As Mists progresses and our gear gets ever-more haste on it — and as players simply get used to rogue gameplay in this expansion — fewer and fewer folks appear to be complaining publicly about energy regen issues. It’s likely this will continue to fade away — until the next expansion begins, at least. :)

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On Twitter: Few Reports of Vanish Not Working Properly, Ghostcrawler Says

I’ve been sick much of the week (PITY ME AND SEND ME CHOCOLATE), so I’ve got a couple of behind-the-times posts to make. The first is regarding this twixchange from a few days ago:

 

@Nicky67806079 We haven't heard many complaints about Vanish not working since we totally rebuilt it a year or two ago. Any more details?

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 15, 2013

@ChritznL It was also really buggy BC of server lag and spells already in flight. "Fix Vanish" was probably the number one request we got.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 15, 2013

 

It is likely that, as long as there is such a thing as “server lag,” there will always be someone complaining that Vanish doesn’t work the way it’s intended. Since I primarily PvE, I can’t speak that well to some of the most common complaints I still come across, which tend to revolve mostly around hunter and warlock pets continuing to target the rogue after Vanish has been cast. But even these reports are neither frequent nor consistent.

There can be zero question that Vanish works oodles better today than it did a few years ago, when there were acknowledged issues with the ability — e.g., rogues being knocked out of stealth almost immediately after hitting the button, because they were hit by a spell that was technically cast *before* they hit Vanish but that, because of normal server lag, didn’t actually “hit” them until *after* they hit Vanish. These issues led to a near-complete overhaul of how Vanish was programmed to work, and since then we’ve had dramatically fewer issues with the ability.

I don’t know why Vanish still occasionally seems not to work properly. Anecdotal reports trickle in periodically, but they’re so few and far between that it’s difficult to pin down precisely what might be causing them, or whether the issues people describe are intended or not. If you Vanish and a hunter pet continues to chase you, did Vanish not do its job, or was the pet just close enough when you Vanished that it was able to quickly retarget you (since stealth, after all, ain’t invisibility)? If you Vanish during a raid fight and a boss is still able to target you with an ability, did Vanish muff up, or is the ability itself designed to ignore stealth entirely?

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On Twitter: Blade Flurry and the Combat Conundrum

Amidst all the twichatter about rogue population numbers over the past couple of days, Ghostcrawler took a detour to comment on one of the more interesting questions about rogue specs:

 

@Somnchai We think Combat is *too* focused on multi-target fights (not so useful in PvP). Would like to buff single target and nerf AE.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 19, 2012

 

This isn’t the first time GC has tweeted about Combat’s “one trick pony” nature. It’s clearly a question he and the devs are struggling with (and one we players often disagree on, too): How can we keep Combat feeling “special” without making it feel like it’s required for two-target situations and useless (compared to the other specs) everywhere else?

This isn’t a new question. We’ve talked about it extensively over in the WoW rogue forum, and more than a year ago Chase Christian (Madsushi in the WoW forums) eloquently walked through his issues with Combat cleave over on WoW Insider. I don’t pretend I’ve got a brilliant answer. (Or even a stupid one.)

But it’s hard for me to see any solution that keeps Blade Flurry as a Combat-only ability. Blade Flurry has to be powerful enough that it’s the best thing to use against two targets, otherwise there’s no point in it existing. And if it’s the best thing to use against two targets, it’s going to feel “required” to use in any two-target situation (or any situation where you *really* need huge AoE burst through the combination of Blade Flurry + Killing Spree).

Yet if you make Blade Flurry baseline, or you nerf it to the point where it’s not very powerful, then what have you done to one of the very few remaining things that helps differentiate one rogue spec from another?

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On Twitter: Versatility Needs “Serious Work,” Sayeth the Crawler of Ghosts (Updated 12/21)

Like, seriously, y’all.

 

@Aulper7 It needs serious work.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 19, 2012

 

Which leads into the obvious question: If completely rejiggering (without removing) Versatility is on the table — whether for Patch 5.2 or beyond — how would you rejigger it? Keep in mind that this needs to be within the context of a talent that is fun, meaningful and powerful, but *wouldn’t* be so powerful that it clearly overshadows the other two options in that tier. Assuming it remains a talent within our level-90 tier at all.

Let’s say, just for the sake of pure speculation, that Versatility was rewritten so that it made combo points stack on the rogue. GC has long been fundamentally opposed to this (as have other Blizzfolk), and it’s probably unlikely to become a reality. But what if it did? Would that not just make it the obvious choice in PvP? And would it do anything at all to unseat Anticipation as the undisputed talent for PvE? Leaving Shuriken Toss to wither away, alone and neglected, pining for happier times?

(I’ve cross-posted this over on the WoW rogue forum; if I’m feeling especially productive I’ll copypasta highlighted posts from there in this thread for the sake of posterity/consolidation.)

UPDATE 12/21:

 

@SvelteKumquat Well... a lot is changing right now. I'll just say two things: "I'm excited" and "More information in January."

—
Nik Gianozakos (@Daxxarri) December 21, 2012

 

I’m thinking he probably isn’t just referring to Versatility.

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On Twitter: What Makes Rogues (Un)popular? Ghostcrawler Opines — Updated 12/19 (Twice)

Here’s a tweetversation that started off nowhere and then went somewhere really interesting. And I say that not only because I got involved and Ghostcrawler replied to something I said. Well, OK, primarily because of that.

(UPDATE 12/19: This has turned into one of the longest conversations GC has been engaged in thus far in his young tweexistence. I’ve added a ton of new tweets to the exchange since originally posting this on 12/18; everything below is kind-of in order from oldest to newest, though I’ve tried to group related tweets together where I could.)

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On Twitter: Blizz to Investigate Reports of “Surge of Conquest” Procs Causing Stealth to Break

Ghostcrawler provided a heads up today that he was aware of reports that the Vicious Gladiator’s Insignia of Conquest (a PvP proc trinket) was causing issues with rogue stealth:

@EvilAipac We'll look into it.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 18, 2012

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Hotfix: Subterfuge No Longer Causes Stealth to Break on Weapon Procs

This tidbit was nestled in the Dec. 13 additions to the official Patch 5.1 hotfix notes (which posted last night):

Various weapon procs will no longer sometimes prematurely break the Stealth provided by the Subterfuge talent.

I’m not sure whether this will account for *all* of the occasions in which people who had chosen Subterfuge as their tier-1 talent were seeing their stealth drop suddenly and inexplicably, a problem that folks have been reporting for months now. But it sure as heck can’t hurt.

For a list of all rogue-related changes in Patch 5.1, you know where to go. Because I just linked to it. Back there. A couple sentences ago. Look behind you. Not in real life. *Virtually* behind you. Literary style. There ya go.

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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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Ruffy Rants: If the WoW Rogue Population Falls in the Forest…

WoW Insider’s Mathew Rossi knows how to write a sexy headline. “Are rogues a dying class?” is the tantalizing title of a new article posted on Dec. 10 that explores a lovely series of spreadsheets and graphs by Cynwise on Warcraft’s current class population numbers. In it, Rossi writes:

Rogues went from 7.67% of max level at patch 5.0.4, the pre-Mists of Pandaria patch, to 5.51% of max level as of patch 5.1, a drop of over 2%. This is at a time when most other classes either held steady (Paladins, Druids, DK’s and Hunters all held at about even with their Cataclysm and patch 5.0.4 numbers), went up (Warriors saw a jump from 9.25% at max level to 10.14% between 5.0.4 and 5.1, while Warlocks went up from 6.7% to 7%) or saw slight declines (Shamans, Priests and Mages all saw slight declines). By comparison, the rogue decline becomes stark.

So, where have all the rogues gone?

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On Twitter: Ghostcrawler Ponders Subtlety’s Third-Class Status in Raids

@JamesWire1 Potentially. If you take Combat for any cleave fight, then Mutilate for the others, you don't have a spec left.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 10, 2012

 

The bigger question I think this tweet raises is: What should be done about the problem? After all, if it’s only underplayed, not underpowered, you can’t really buff it — that would likely just push the see-saw in the opposite direction.

And heck, while I’m at it: Is this even really a “problem”? Is it automatically a bad thing if we only use two of the three rogue specs in end-game PvE? Is it possible that, in this crazy, mixed-up, dual-spec world of ours, we players simply can’t handle the concept of three truly viable raiding specs?

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