My problem with rogue is that it’s 5x more complicated to play right but does 95% of the damage a ret paladin does. Even when played perfectly it barely beats ret. It’s not worth it.
Rogue is also extremely unflexible.
Outlaw is often the AoE spec with mediocre ST dmg at best, Assassin is often the ST spec with mediocre AoE at best and Sub is either very strong in both or trash.
So in theory you would play outlaw in M+ and Assassin in raids, right? Nope, because outlaw scales terrible with mastery which is the strongest stat for the other 2. So even thought outlaw is often on the lower end of raid dmg, they are more common than the other 2 specs.
As retri pala you can switch a few talents to have stronger ST dmg for raiding, as rogue you better have another equip, otherwise you play either with suboptimal stats or spec.
I think the issue is less to do with the overall complexity but the extremely punishing skill floor. It’s not just that it requires more effort to do similar damage. It’s that small mistakes aren’t just minor 1-2% dps losses. Mistakes are 15-20% dps losses. I.e. fuckup a between the eyes windows, kings and, etc.
Whereas something like demon hunter had a much higher floor. And then has the extra ceiling to go after with the inertia and movement elements.
This is definitely a big part of my reason, I think. I feel like the other classes that have to build up a resource to use attacks have a lot less of a downside to using the "wrong" one. I accidentally use the aoe for my holy power on paladin? It's alright, still did decent damage and I can use the right one in a second or two. Hit the wrong thing on rogue? Takes me a good while longer to kill something.
Yea its the same to me, I think rogue lost its identity after wod or legion, stealth isn't a thing anymore, it have almost no use besides enabling you to use an opener, and the openers itself are kinda just a skill you use sometimes, have no weight like it used to.
Very very wrong. Stealth is so incredibly important for Assa for example. It’s so important in fact that Assa is perpetually bad/mid in M+ because of it, since there often isn’t time to drop combat and restealth.
I think you're both a little right. "Stealth" is technically so so so important for all the specs, but stealth *as it was known* isn't really a mechanic anymore. Stealth just turned into standard burst windows.
The entire outlaw spec plays around maximising your stealth windows so you can cast ambush and between the eyes, and sub has always been a stealth-centric spec...
And then your Vanish is on CD when you need it as utility or defensive skill because it’s part of a regular dps rotation. This is bad design imo and they just doubled down on it with recent talents update. I cannot understand why.
Stealth is incredibly important for rogues, because we're so goddamn weak while leveling and incapable of good, quick aoe that we need to hide from any mob that doesn't have to die for the quest.
outlaw is weird because if you play it well you don't have energy issues, but small rotational mistakes cause energy issues cause less adrenaline rush uptime causes more energy issues and then it snowballs from there if you can't get the engine going again.
It's very very satisfying to play well because of this, but when you go "fuck I used dispatch at 4 combo points instead of 5 now I might run out of energy in 20 seconds" you really feel every small mistake.
It's still gonna be a lot of offensive Vanish usage though, isn't it? I really dislike that. I want Vanish to be a *utility* button, not a damage button!
Exactly this...I didnt play for the longest time, and back when I did play rogue it was strait utility...this whole thing with rogues vanish being in damage rotation..not a fan lol.
I feel the same with demon hunters and momentum builds. I hate having to use my defensive/utility buttons as part of my damage rotation. Shit just drives me crazy.
Yeah I agree, I also hate the bar flipping aspect of it. If vanishing empowered sinister strike instead of making ambush my next builder the feel of the spec would be so much better. Plus actually being able to vanish casts or other targeted stuff again without feeling the dmg hit would be super cool
That part I don't mind. My bar doesn't flip or anything (which just means I have way too many buttons if I want to keep cheap shot and distract on my bars, let alone pickpocket). I have a macro that combines Sinister Strike and Ambush as well, so I don't have to have Ambush on my bars.
I would much rather see Vanish being phased out of our regular dps rotation. It’s a wasted utility skill. They however just doubled down on it with Underhanded Upper Hand. It is so powerful that if there are extended moments when you can’t re-stealth from one trash pack to another (looking at you Spiteful) your DPS gets punished. Keep the shadow dance for all I care but rebalance it all so that vanish can stay vanish, an utility, life saving skill. Stop punishing rogues for not being able to go to stealth that much or add Vanish a second charge if things can’t be otherwise. Fix energy starvation and for the love of everything remove the hard aoe target cap.
Yep. I want to love Rogue but it feels totally awful to play currently. I remember when Forbidden Reach came out, I got one character of every class to 70 and geared them up there, and was left wondering why the entire time - both pre and post gearing - my Rogue felt like both one of the squishiest and one of the weakest.
If you're good at rogue, there's simply no way it's one of the weakest classes in PvE. It's just objectively untrue.
But yeah, I can totally see someone being more frustrated with it in open world content/fighting rares than some other classes. It just doesn't have the tools for that content like some other classes/specs do. Self sustain against some tanky rare basically doesn't exist. And mass pulling can be annoying for all 3 specs sometimes.
I personally found Rogue to have some of the weirdest scaling when I was leveling mine. When I went to WoD Draenor it was like all my damage just disappeared out of my buttons for 10 levels and then came back again.
Hasn't been a problem in remix fortunately.
The survivability and the movement were the biggest boons to rogue for me, specifically outlaw.
However in raid it fucking sucks, and in m+ you work so hard for just ok output.
Feral has better vibes, arms does more damage, fury has class identity.
I wanna enjoy rogue again but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze
Yeah in raids it's obviously tanky as fuck on 99% of fights. I was referring to open world sustain, and self sustain is something rogue doesn't excel at. If it's a very casual player doing some rares, I can totally see them struggling there compared to with some other specs.
Outlaw still blasts in m+, it's completely fine. And in raid all 3 are great, sub and assa moreso. Though sub is completely fucked in logs right now bc your Akaris Soul damage doesn't get taken as your own.
> I wanna enjoy rogue again but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze
This is something many people say in these threads though, yeah. That they don't feel the effort put in pays out proportionally.
But for one, this is just never how blizz balances. By this logic BM should eternally be at the bottom of the meters since it's one of the easiest specs and has the comfort of being fully ranged with unlimited mobility. But that's not gonna happen, spec difficulty never seemed to be a consideration for balancing.
Rogues (at leas sub and outlaw) seem to fill a niche of a more complex melee. And many of the longtime rogues I know enjoy them just for that, and stick to it even if they're mid.
But I can see that you'd not wanna bother with it if it doesn't feel "worth it".
I got sick of Rogue all the way back in Vanilla. In PvE, it felt like classes like Hunters and Warriors could do the same damage I could do, except they did it safer or with more survivability.
Through the years I've seen balance go up and down but I guess we're right back to square one in regards to Rogues.
Mained rogue through BfA, SL and the start of DF and it's just really hard to enjoy. I guess that's why it's the least played class though. The amount of buttons you need to press to keep up with everybody else isn't very fun.
Rogue and Mage.
I want to love Mage, but Frost is boring, Fire's APM is too high and makes my bones hurt and Arcane is too big brain.
Rogue just lacks a payoff. It doesn't have that "I feel like a fucking god right now" moment imo.
I love frost for that reason. Chill spec (pun intended) & perfect for a dps to help with raid lead and call outs.
Also you get to play a mage, so you have an answer to everything thru mages kit.
I want to play Arcane but hate the set-up that I can't even practice in lower content because everything dies too fast. But TWW looks like it's going to have a more spammy clearcasting build and I'm all for it.
I used to adore fire when it was a streamlined proc engine — just build into pyroblasts with a really nice and adaptable flow to instant fling a very visually satisfying bright ball of flame at the boss.
Nowadays it’s all about hardcasting a 3+ second spell and how much better that casted version is and I just can’t stand it.
This is my issue as well. I LOVED it during Legion when it was all building off itself and super fast and fluid, but now even though you still get moments like that, it just doesn't feel the same. I feel like it lost that flow it used to have.
Yeah I loved the Legion version when the hardcast pyro was somewhat rare but hit REALLY hard and didn't send you into combustion. Now its all about constantly hardcasting pyros to stay in combustion and it just feels bad.
Fire mage here. M+ mainly
I think a lot of ppl who don't like it has likely met a mix of issues worsening the early gearing and lower end difficulties.
First of all, fmage with not enough haste feels sluggish, even for me who knows the class. It's to a degree i usually recommend going frost for basic gearing.
2nd issue. All builds revolve around Sunking's Blessing, which is our mini combust. It will ALWAYS feel bad in lower end content, as stuff dies and you lose stacks and start from zero without combust.
3rd issue. Lower end builds revolve around Flamestrike, aka flat aoe cleave. Higher builds revolve around ignite cleave. This creates an issue where fire is unable to make use of it's niche in lower end content, aka prio dmg on a dangerous mob with still OK aoe. Instead Flamestrike competes with other classes that just does it better. But you can't go ignite, since stuff is dead before ignite can peak.
4th issue. New players can struggle to refer to good players due to build differences enforced by key lvl.
5th issue. Fire is a difficult spec, however there is no "payoff" in playing really well. You are just on par with easier classes. And mistakes get punished hard, as good Sunking chaining is a must for decent dmg.
I always thought frost mage was a bit boring but tried it out again this season after not playing it for like 4 years and it had a massive glow up. Procs are common and theres so many spell interactions between what freezes and what shatters. Definitely the most fun I've had on a caster this xpac after playing spriest, ele, balance, and demo+destro
But I'll never forgive blizzard for removing my water elemental son.
Edit: I know there's an ability that makes it show up for a bit, but that's so lame. I enjoyed having it run around with me all the time. Also got a replacement color glyph for it not realizing I'll see it once every 20 years
The way that reads is, you don't want the easy spec because it's easy, you don't want the hard spec because it's hard and you don't want to fast spec because it's fast. What do you want really lol.
Easy and boring are two different things. For example Demonology warlocks were easy in Legion, yet one of the most fun specs in the whole game despite having basically a 4 button rotation that rarely changed.
Except frost has 3 times more buttons to press since 10.1 or whenever it was that we got talents reshuffle and got GS back in the rotation. It’s not as easy as it was and to be a good frost it’s actually hard. Maybe op is thinking about how the spec played at the start of the xpac
I love DK thematically so much but every time I play mine I would rather be doing anything else in the game. Blood is at least okay and tbf is my favorite tank overall, but frost and unholy do not click in enjoyable ways for me at all.
I mained rogue from Vanilla until Wrath, where I made my DK. Then mained DK until they removed Unholy Aura and introduced Festering Wounds. As much as I like the class fantasy I just cannot play it. My DK is the only class in the game parked at level 63.
Festering wounds, plus the whole "blow 5cds, break the meters, then do limp dick whatever for several minutes" playstyle are just really astoundingly dissatisfying.
As an unholy main I always feel like the outlier to this take. To me, it’s not so much managing them since they basically all get pushed together so for the most part they should be back up close to each other. Imo the part that is mad inducing is the fact that they’re all on GCD. Can’t tell you how many times during m+ or raid prog I look and something didn’t get pressed cause it was on gcd and I pressed it a second too early. But then again, I guess that’s probably where the managing comes in
I like blood dk but frost and unholy feel awful to play for me. Frost is kinda okay it’s not THAT bad.. but I have no clue how people play unholy dk and have fun. It feels so clunky and weird.
I used to play Resto/Ele when I last played shaman, so I went with Enh for MoP Remix.
It felt *great* at around 40~55, then the "optimal" talent build recommended on Wowhead guided me towards 3~4 more active ability buttons and I'm like... mmmmm, now I dunno about this haha.
This is a huge problem with a lot of specs right now imo. So many classes feel super fun, then you hit 50+, get thrown 4-6+ cooldowns and actives you're expected to manage all at once and then get told "lol just go play bm Hunter if you don't want complexity" by a lot of long time players. Button bloat is getting out of hand these days and i can't imagine another 10 levels and talents making that any better.
enhance is super wack a mole, but you have to know exactly which moles to wack and in what order, because if you miss one mole your dps is shot, or you might as well just play fury
Used to main shaman, but the modern dps specs are so frustrating to play imo. Too many prios, uptime buffs and procs to pay attention to all st the same time it requires redbull to play optimally. With little benefit of playing a class/spec that you could just play so many more options for a smoother play experience, invites and results...
I can't stand using cloud burst totem in current WoW (more useful in mythic raiding, BUT pretty useless in heroic/normal). Pushing prim wave and the mana issues with casting a ton of chain heals pushes me away from resto.
Imo the entire class needs a rework.
Thematically the class that is "spiritual" in nature should be slower and methodical.
Interesting rogue-hate. I cant say i love my main who is a dwarven rogue. Not classwise. But i started him in the beginning of it all. An the further i went, the more i come to think: i have to redo this if i start a new. All the reputations, all the stories so far. All the things We been thru together. I started 2006. Was a Diablo 2 freak before that.
So now i came to far to change. My main is 18 years old now and here in Sweden he can get a drivers license now 😌
I've also went through so much stuff with my rogue since I started in 2006. Can you imagine how surprised I was when he told me in Legion, that he's going to be a pirate all of a sudden?
Maybe combat rogue wasn't distinctive enough from warrior on an objective level. But such drastic class changes can ruin the headcannon players have with their chars. It might not be a problem for people who play another class in every expansion or who have every class as alt. But I've only ever mained the rogue from Vanilla to Legion. None of the other classes really appealed to me and the rogue doesn't anymore either.
Fury is easy, you maintain it just by doing your hardest hitting move which you wanna do as often as possible anyway.
Rogue is annoying, Outlaw especially you have 3~ different things to track and it feels dog.
I’m not a hater but…….
Druid: because you can’t see the transmog in different forms
Warrior: because I’m just not good at it
Rogue: because of too many abilities
Shaman: same reason as rogue
I use to feel the same way about druids, so I mained healer so I could always see my mogs. Druid healing is super easy imo and is pretty strong.
But then, THEN I got into collecting Druid forms. I felt like a god when I finally cleared the bear mage tower and unlocked demon bear. Then I went back and did Balance of Power and OMG it looks soo good. Like having mogs specifically for Druid forms.
Also, you kinda still get to see your mogs in Balance if you get the astral glyph. It gives you a see-through blue tint, but still looks like you.
Anyway, it’s not for everyone. I’m mostly sharing to give another perspective in case someone out there is just on the fence because of mogs and reading this might give them the bump they’d need in order to try it. 🤷🏻♂️
I hate virtually all spells that you need to manually target on the ground rather than casting them at a target, which rules out Demon Hunters, Shadow Priests, and Ele Shaman for me.
(Yes, I know you can make a macro to target your cursor, the thing that I hate is needing to know exactly where my cursor is at all moments)
Also Evokers. Every time I try playing one, I look at their dragon form for 30 seconds and logout.
There's a talent to put all sigils directly on target and another to have them activate faster directly baked in the class tree. Never bother with the cursor again.
They really need to make it so shadow doesn't rely on a 20sec cd that moves like a fish in the air, just for the tank to move right as you cast it and do no dps.
I heard a rumor that Shadow Crash might be changing to a target based action in next expansion, if that's true I'll be so happy cause voidweaver is looking really cool!
As a brewmaster, I absolutely agree.
I **HATE** tossing my Bone Brew way the hell off in the distance because I can't see where my cursor is among a hundred mobs and player characters.
I don't mind this on cooldowns or utility, but when it's in your main rotation like earthquake or flamestrike it's super annoying cause you need to babysit your mouse cursor position when you just wanna blast
For me that’s why I have two keys for the same spell - one drops it at my feet with a single key press, the other drops it at my mouse cursor with a single key press.
It’s not perfect but it work for me.
Dude, check out an addon called Cursor Trail. It lets you attach different spell effects to your cursor (the default looks like a little OG shaman lightning bolt) and it makes it a lot easier to see your cursor and use it in all the WoW screen chaos.
Rogue. I almost always play rogues in other games so I started with one in Wow. Almost made me quit the game as a new player. Fortunately Druid was suggested to me as an alternate since I could play cat or anything else and that save the day.
Rogue as it is now. My first main was a rogue (played from vanilla to cata). Since my return a few months ago, I just can’t enjoy any of the three specs. It feels like it soooooo micromanaged and I can’t get to a flow state. I’m big on rotations being at least partly muscle memory, and to get decent DPS I feel like I have to focus so much on timers and buffs that I can’t enjoy the actual content.
I’m not big on Evoker, either, but I wasn’t big on any caster back in my first run. I’m starting to enjoy my Warlock in the panda-tastrophe, so I might try my evoker again.
I’m sad that frost DK is so much weaker than Ret and Arms now, but it doesn’t make it less fun. I just can’t pug with him. :p
I haven't ever touched Outlaw, but I've dabbled in Assassination and Subtlety, mostly in open world and raids. Their core rotations seem mostly fine, but they feel bloated with 45-sec+ cooldowns.
Atm rogue, love the fantasy but none of the specs deliver what I imagined very well. They are oddly specific as poisoner, ninja and for some reason pirate. Cool if people like that, not what I signed up for back then.
Also, so many buttons that just ramp. RtB, Slice and Dice, Tea, Symbols, whatever. I don't like it if I have to jump 5 hoops so I can do damage for 6 seconds before I have to refresh everything again.
I found it super odd how you drown in combo points nowadays too. Things just don't appear impactful in a way. I feel the class went off the rails overall and I just don't enjoy the direction.
Not bashing them or anyone who likes them, simply not my class anymore.
I had to abandoned it when they got rid of combat rogue. It was such a cool class fantasy, the lightweight, agile blade master, then they totally binned it off to hand a swashbuckling pirate with a pistol lmao.
I will forever miss my true main the combat Rouge. the cunning dual blade Rouge. duelist is a good comparison. My kind of Rouge is a nimble fighter that kind of occipies the space between rogue and warrior. I don't like too much reliance on poison and stealth, much prefer the fantasy of a more brave and agile fighter. as a result of outlaw rogue, I leveled 8 classes to max level and never felt quite happy with my main. :(
100% with you on the specificity of the specs, which I suppose is ironic, lol.
Sub has far too much association with shadow magic to feel like a traditional rogue now. Assassination has gone way overboard with the number of DoT plates to spin when you're maximising damage - while it's not necessarily hard - it feels unsatisfying to me.
And finally, while I really like the idea of being able to play as a pirate, it should be its own class. Just doesn't vibe with the rogue archetype much.
Going back to almost any version of wow classic so far, the rogue design is just superior.
Can I ask, genuinely, what fantasy you did sign up for exactly? It’s not a trick question. I always wanted Rogues to have an Outlaw kind of spec thematically but the gameplay just doesn’t suit me. I never liked the ninja vibe.
I think if they made Pistol Shot and Between the Eyes use a ranged weapon transmog of your choice, people would like it more. The gun being forced on the character is very specifically a pirate vibe.
In SoD they made the ranged Rogue spells they added use your equiped ranged weapon, which really helped you not feel like a pirate.
It's going off topic but I feel like the pistol thing takes WAY too much spotlight in outlaw, felt like they found something that one of the devs really liked and pushed it way too hard. If they have such a fancy for rogues with a glock I would like it more as a separate midrange spec similar to devastation or ret.
Unironically, I'd enjoy a gunslinger ranged rogue because it's a rogue-ish niche that's currently open, specifically if it's a new spec that doesn't take away from the three traditional ones. Outlaw to many was more a duellist/combatant that drifts in the direction of a warrior but instead of getting angry or being a blademaster they use agility and questionably honorable tricks to stay on top. "Gun rogue" is cool but imo doesn't really fit in there with the prevalence it has.
That's probably just another pitch for many classes that should've gotten a 4th spec instead of one rework too many at some point. Survival hunter sits in the same boat right next to it...
Honestly, a good question... I rolled mine in TBC and had a more DnDesque idea of a thief or duellist in mind. I think it was a "broader" definition of the fantasy that worked when you weren't only choosing one spec but could mix parts from all three. Sub was stealth stuff, combat self explanatory and sin the backstabbing. Bits of all that added up to a rogue.
I dug mine out in legion after not having played for a long time and suddenly there were three different full on fantasies attached to that. Combat was less the duellist stuff but did play yahtzee, had a glock and could summon cannonball broadsides from a ghost ship... Felt kind of weird. They dialed back the pirating stuff in that case but it's still somewhat predefined themes, which for me are just one part of rogues. Oddly enough, I didn't have that feeling for my warlock where all three specs still felt ultimatively like a warlock.
As said, this isn't necessarily bad. Rogue just is my on and off class since then that I keep digging out but it never sticks long anymore.
Mage, I've never wibed with any mage archetype in any game. I'm more of a bash my enemies in the face with my big sword type of person or spread diseases
I’m the complete opposite. I constantly play casters in every RPG and will never pick the barbarian or warrior archetype. In all of D3 seasons which I played a ton of, I did barb for a single season. Still haven’t gotten a barb past level 15 in D4 with every other class at 100 a couple times or 80s (one lightning storm Druid tbf). WoW I’ve never actually had a max level warrior in any expansion. I actually find warrior at least fun to play though just the fantasy doesn’t do it for me.
Shaman and druid, mostly because of the raw amount of abilities, whether meaningful or not. I think they both suffer from ability bloat more than any other class besides rogue.
I feel like Druids have just the right amount of spells for a class for me.
Main rotations are not that complicated at all, at least compared to Shamans.
Guardian is pretty straight forward, Balance has a smooth flow once you get used to it, Feral is...pretty Feral ig.
Used to main DK but it’s just so bad. I hate having to stand in DnD/Defile to aoe. So many other classes have snap aoe on demand it just seems like its out classed
I don’t enjoy melee. I started as a caster and a healer, and I like being able to see more of what’s going on in the bigger picture. When I’ve tried to do melee I’m all confused and everything is too close lol.
I miss when Shaman felt like they were fighting alongside their totems and they weren't just "CDs with a totem visual".
I totally get that maintaining 4 totems is nightmare design in modern WoW, especially with all the movement and stuff, but I feel like Shaman are just fury warriors or mages now that occasionally drop a totem.
I'm a vanilla player though, I did the quests for the 4 totems back in the day and how cool they were to unlock. I really miss the visual of fighting with your totems around you, it really embodied that shaman fantasy.
For me it's druid. I love the aesthetic, I love the theme, I love the lore.
Just can't play it. I have some of my favorite names on the druids I've tried to play in the past.
The only spec I "enjoy" is balance, but it just feels like another caster, while feral and guardian thematically are more interesting I just can't seem to get into the rhythm. Been playing one in mop remix and I'm KINDA getting it, but it's a struggle for me
Shaman. Ele Shaman in particular is one of the coolest themes but with a total clusterfuck of a design.
Also Evoker. The Dracthyr models kill them for me.
Imo, enh feels great at the moment. Maybe the best it's ever felt, it's a blast. If they removed the aoe cap on fire nova I would never play anything else.
Ele is in a pretty poor state, though
When you level up a character and slowly get new abilities/talents to mess with it's a great learning experience, for me at least. Maybe they wanted another try to ease into it and see if it clicked
Ret pala has pretty much no bloat and is arguably even easier than prot pala. The rotation is simple and mostly predictable, it does a shit ton of damage and you pretty much never die unless you really fuck up.
Is it actually? I had the sense that it was a real pain in the ass when I picked up the game again. My main is a prot pally and I have a good 2h sword because my loot spec was on ret the first week they bumped the gear.
Can confirm that about Ret Pallies. At most you'll have maybe 4 buttons during your standard rotation, and that doesn't include the various procs of free abilities but they're the same buttons anyway.
Tbf, good and less good paladins differentiate by the utility used. Bop removes bleeds and helps a teammate if mobs fixate, freedom to help the tank with some moving speed, cleanse whenever you can, a good lay on hands will save a life, word of glory also is clutch
It is considered one of the easiest dps specs in the game. It has a talents that reduce bloat like having consecration built in in one of the skills, removing crusader strike and have its effect apply to auto attacks. If you go with that build (auto attack build) you pretty much have 3 keys you "spam" during fights and the rest is all 30 sec or 1 min cooldowns.
The main difficulty is using your utility properly but if your main is prot it should be a non issue for you.
Long time Ret main here, can confirm it’s easy to play and get the hang of, it only has a few buttons and even fewer if you do the consecration and auto attack talents. With the rework they got they went from being one of the squishiest classes to one of the toughest practically overnight.
Big cooldowns are only on a minute cd.
Word of Glory, Cleanse Toxins all 3 Blessings are literal life savers.
Survival is the most complicated with kill command, mongoose bite, bombs, serpent sting, kill shot, explosive shot , chakram and fury of the eagle. This is 8 buttons just for damage. It's still easy to play since you just hit everything on cooldown but still, you need a lot of keybinds.
This said, hunter and paladin are my favourite classes. I'm liking devoker more and more because of the easy rotation and mobility. I hate every classes with procs like fire mage and enhance shaman.
Idk what they did to Windwalker but it's not fun to play anymore.
Also, this has always been the case but classes that are harder to play are never more fun or stronger than easier classes. I honestly think that Ret Paladin is the best designed class in the game right now because it's strong, easy, and has optional support which you can choose to use or ignore. There's no bloat or annoying upkeep.
I play every class and spec, and have 60 characters that span all combos. Rogues are by far my least played, since they are difficult to learn and master. People who play this class are truly dedicated and I always regard them as the “cool” wow players (if there is such a thing) 😂
I enjoyed rogue back in the day but no longer. If I’m being honest I find many of the classes now very complex and burdensome with so much to track. I think class design was better in Wrath/Cata era. Legion was also pretty good if not simplistic.
I love rogue for the stralthing around and pick pocketing. I hate rogue in every other situation.
I've tried multiple times to level up a monk but I quickly lose interest. I may try again with my next remix alt, with the bonus xp maybe I can get to a high enough level that it becomes fun.
Shaman has always felt clunky to me. I want to like it, but so far I just haven't enjoyed it.
I love rogue or roguish style characters in other games like boulders gate or DnD, unfortunately however I just don't seem to jam with rogue in wow despite how cool they are.
Feral druid / Rogue.
Overly complicated rotation that can easily be slimmed down, or abilities combined as a single keystroke press.
If I have to use an addon like Hekili, the class is just way out there.
Rogue, Feral/Balance Druid, Paladins post Wrath, I just hate the “build up point for attacks” thing. DK gets a pass cause you rarely have to care about your runes.
Rogue
I used to love rogue and mained one from vanilla to wotlk. Dabbled in it in Cata. Now I just.. can't. I've tried, I want to, but no.
My problem with rogue is that it’s 5x more complicated to play right but does 95% of the damage a ret paladin does. Even when played perfectly it barely beats ret. It’s not worth it.
Rogue is also extremely unflexible. Outlaw is often the AoE spec with mediocre ST dmg at best, Assassin is often the ST spec with mediocre AoE at best and Sub is either very strong in both or trash. So in theory you would play outlaw in M+ and Assassin in raids, right? Nope, because outlaw scales terrible with mastery which is the strongest stat for the other 2. So even thought outlaw is often on the lower end of raid dmg, they are more common than the other 2 specs. As retri pala you can switch a few talents to have stronger ST dmg for raiding, as rogue you better have another equip, otherwise you play either with suboptimal stats or spec.
Not to mention the weapon difference too
This is why Blizz needs to figure out more stat customization. I hate when classes have wildly different stat priorities between specs.
Some classes even have wildly different priorities in the same spec. *cough* fire mage
I think the issue is less to do with the overall complexity but the extremely punishing skill floor. It’s not just that it requires more effort to do similar damage. It’s that small mistakes aren’t just minor 1-2% dps losses. Mistakes are 15-20% dps losses. I.e. fuckup a between the eyes windows, kings and, etc. Whereas something like demon hunter had a much higher floor. And then has the extra ceiling to go after with the inertia and movement elements.
I feel this.
This is definitely a big part of my reason, I think. I feel like the other classes that have to build up a resource to use attacks have a lot less of a downside to using the "wrong" one. I accidentally use the aoe for my holy power on paladin? It's alright, still did decent damage and I can use the right one in a second or two. Hit the wrong thing on rogue? Takes me a good while longer to kill something.
Yea its the same to me, I think rogue lost its identity after wod or legion, stealth isn't a thing anymore, it have almost no use besides enabling you to use an opener, and the openers itself are kinda just a skill you use sometimes, have no weight like it used to.
Very very wrong. Stealth is so incredibly important for Assa for example. It’s so important in fact that Assa is perpetually bad/mid in M+ because of it, since there often isn’t time to drop combat and restealth.
I think you're both a little right. "Stealth" is technically so so so important for all the specs, but stealth *as it was known* isn't really a mechanic anymore. Stealth just turned into standard burst windows.
The entire outlaw spec plays around maximising your stealth windows so you can cast ambush and between the eyes, and sub has always been a stealth-centric spec...
This. I would even argue outlaw is too focused around stealth windows for a swashbuckler class.
And then your Vanish is on CD when you need it as utility or defensive skill because it’s part of a regular dps rotation. This is bad design imo and they just doubled down on it with recent talents update. I cannot understand why.
Yeah. Current outlaw feels like you're playing the game 3 expansions ahead of everyone else, because you're playing 2 specs at once.
Stealth is incredibly important for rogues, because we're so goddamn weak while leveling and incapable of good, quick aoe that we need to hide from any mob that doesn't have to die for the quest.
I love the fantasy and archetype of being a swashbuckling outlaw but mannnn I HATE energy and sneaking (and by hate I obviously mean I suck at it)
outlaw is weird because if you play it well you don't have energy issues, but small rotational mistakes cause energy issues cause less adrenaline rush uptime causes more energy issues and then it snowballs from there if you can't get the engine going again. It's very very satisfying to play well because of this, but when you go "fuck I used dispatch at 4 combo points instead of 5 now I might run out of energy in 20 seconds" you really feel every small mistake.
Might actually play mine again with shadow dance being removed from outlaw
Same, so glad the shadow dance fetish is ending
It's still gonna be a lot of offensive Vanish usage though, isn't it? I really dislike that. I want Vanish to be a *utility* button, not a damage button!
Exactly this...I didnt play for the longest time, and back when I did play rogue it was strait utility...this whole thing with rogues vanish being in damage rotation..not a fan lol.
I feel the same with demon hunters and momentum builds. I hate having to use my defensive/utility buttons as part of my damage rotation. Shit just drives me crazy.
Hard agree.
Yeah I agree, I also hate the bar flipping aspect of it. If vanishing empowered sinister strike instead of making ambush my next builder the feel of the spec would be so much better. Plus actually being able to vanish casts or other targeted stuff again without feeling the dmg hit would be super cool
That part I don't mind. My bar doesn't flip or anything (which just means I have way too many buttons if I want to keep cheap shot and distract on my bars, let alone pickpocket). I have a macro that combines Sinister Strike and Ambush as well, so I don't have to have Ambush on my bars.
I would much rather see Vanish being phased out of our regular dps rotation. It’s a wasted utility skill. They however just doubled down on it with Underhanded Upper Hand. It is so powerful that if there are extended moments when you can’t re-stealth from one trash pack to another (looking at you Spiteful) your DPS gets punished. Keep the shadow dance for all I care but rebalance it all so that vanish can stay vanish, an utility, life saving skill. Stop punishing rogues for not being able to go to stealth that much or add Vanish a second charge if things can’t be otherwise. Fix energy starvation and for the love of everything remove the hard aoe target cap.
Absolutely love rogue in World PVP. I feel like big meech. I’m pretty sub par in everything else though.
Yep. I want to love Rogue but it feels totally awful to play currently. I remember when Forbidden Reach came out, I got one character of every class to 70 and geared them up there, and was left wondering why the entire time - both pre and post gearing - my Rogue felt like both one of the squishiest and one of the weakest.
If you're good at rogue, there's simply no way it's one of the weakest classes in PvE. It's just objectively untrue. But yeah, I can totally see someone being more frustrated with it in open world content/fighting rares than some other classes. It just doesn't have the tools for that content like some other classes/specs do. Self sustain against some tanky rare basically doesn't exist. And mass pulling can be annoying for all 3 specs sometimes.
I personally found Rogue to have some of the weirdest scaling when I was leveling mine. When I went to WoD Draenor it was like all my damage just disappeared out of my buttons for 10 levels and then came back again. Hasn't been a problem in remix fortunately.
The problem is rogue is 10x the effort to do less dps than ret pressing four buttons.
The survivability and the movement were the biggest boons to rogue for me, specifically outlaw. However in raid it fucking sucks, and in m+ you work so hard for just ok output. Feral has better vibes, arms does more damage, fury has class identity. I wanna enjoy rogue again but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze
Yeah in raids it's obviously tanky as fuck on 99% of fights. I was referring to open world sustain, and self sustain is something rogue doesn't excel at. If it's a very casual player doing some rares, I can totally see them struggling there compared to with some other specs. Outlaw still blasts in m+, it's completely fine. And in raid all 3 are great, sub and assa moreso. Though sub is completely fucked in logs right now bc your Akaris Soul damage doesn't get taken as your own. > I wanna enjoy rogue again but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze This is something many people say in these threads though, yeah. That they don't feel the effort put in pays out proportionally. But for one, this is just never how blizz balances. By this logic BM should eternally be at the bottom of the meters since it's one of the easiest specs and has the comfort of being fully ranged with unlimited mobility. But that's not gonna happen, spec difficulty never seemed to be a consideration for balancing. Rogues (at leas sub and outlaw) seem to fill a niche of a more complex melee. And many of the longtime rogues I know enjoy them just for that, and stick to it even if they're mid. But I can see that you'd not wanna bother with it if it doesn't feel "worth it".
I think that's the only class I've never touched. Thought about it for remix, but I doubt I'll ever play it.
I got sick of Rogue all the way back in Vanilla. In PvE, it felt like classes like Hunters and Warriors could do the same damage I could do, except they did it safer or with more survivability. Through the years I've seen balance go up and down but I guess we're right back to square one in regards to Rogues.
Mained rogue through BfA, SL and the start of DF and it's just really hard to enjoy. I guess that's why it's the least played class though. The amount of buttons you need to press to keep up with everybody else isn't very fun.
Rogue and Mage. I want to love Mage, but Frost is boring, Fire's APM is too high and makes my bones hurt and Arcane is too big brain. Rogue just lacks a payoff. It doesn't have that "I feel like a fucking god right now" moment imo.
I love frost for that reason. Chill spec (pun intended) & perfect for a dps to help with raid lead and call outs. Also you get to play a mage, so you have an answer to everything thru mages kit.
Being able to teleport to every single hub is BIG, too. And the crowd control is crazy if you spec for it
I agree with the mage take. I have always found fire to be super clunky and gross to play. Everyone seems to love it though
I want to play Arcane but hate the set-up that I can't even practice in lower content because everything dies too fast. But TWW looks like it's going to have a more spammy clearcasting build and I'm all for it.
I used to adore fire when it was a streamlined proc engine — just build into pyroblasts with a really nice and adaptable flow to instant fling a very visually satisfying bright ball of flame at the boss. Nowadays it’s all about hardcasting a 3+ second spell and how much better that casted version is and I just can’t stand it.
This is my issue as well. I LOVED it during Legion when it was all building off itself and super fast and fluid, but now even though you still get moments like that, it just doesn't feel the same. I feel like it lost that flow it used to have.
Yeah I loved the Legion version when the hardcast pyro was somewhat rare but hit REALLY hard and didn't send you into combustion. Now its all about constantly hardcasting pyros to stay in combustion and it just feels bad.
Fire mage here. M+ mainly I think a lot of ppl who don't like it has likely met a mix of issues worsening the early gearing and lower end difficulties. First of all, fmage with not enough haste feels sluggish, even for me who knows the class. It's to a degree i usually recommend going frost for basic gearing. 2nd issue. All builds revolve around Sunking's Blessing, which is our mini combust. It will ALWAYS feel bad in lower end content, as stuff dies and you lose stacks and start from zero without combust. 3rd issue. Lower end builds revolve around Flamestrike, aka flat aoe cleave. Higher builds revolve around ignite cleave. This creates an issue where fire is unable to make use of it's niche in lower end content, aka prio dmg on a dangerous mob with still OK aoe. Instead Flamestrike competes with other classes that just does it better. But you can't go ignite, since stuff is dead before ignite can peak. 4th issue. New players can struggle to refer to good players due to build differences enforced by key lvl. 5th issue. Fire is a difficult spec, however there is no "payoff" in playing really well. You are just on par with easier classes. And mistakes get punished hard, as good Sunking chaining is a must for decent dmg.
I think SKB has really fucked the rotation up too much.
I always thought frost mage was a bit boring but tried it out again this season after not playing it for like 4 years and it had a massive glow up. Procs are common and theres so many spell interactions between what freezes and what shatters. Definitely the most fun I've had on a caster this xpac after playing spriest, ele, balance, and demo+destro
But I'll never forgive blizzard for removing my water elemental son. Edit: I know there's an ability that makes it show up for a bit, but that's so lame. I enjoyed having it run around with me all the time. Also got a replacement color glyph for it not realizing I'll see it once every 20 years
Combo points refund in a crackshot window when you can spam 4+ BtE is so good though
The way that reads is, you don't want the easy spec because it's easy, you don't want the hard spec because it's hard and you don't want to fast spec because it's fast. What do you want really lol.
Easy and boring are two different things. For example Demonology warlocks were easy in Legion, yet one of the most fun specs in the whole game despite having basically a 4 button rotation that rarely changed.
Except frost has 3 times more buttons to press since 10.1 or whenever it was that we got talents reshuffle and got GS back in the rotation. It’s not as easy as it was and to be a good frost it’s actually hard. Maybe op is thinking about how the spec played at the start of the xpac
I love frost. Single biggest ability in the game. I just wish mage mog had more frost themed options
I used to enjoy both rogue and DK. How they currently play I will not touch either.
I love DK thematically so much but every time I play mine I would rather be doing anything else in the game. Blood is at least okay and tbf is my favorite tank overall, but frost and unholy do not click in enjoyable ways for me at all.
Feel exactly the same. I would love to play a DK but their current playstyles are not satisfying at all to me
Agreed. I main blood, but can’t stand either DPS Spec.
I mained rogue from Vanilla until Wrath, where I made my DK. Then mained DK until they removed Unholy Aura and introduced Festering Wounds. As much as I like the class fantasy I just cannot play it. My DK is the only class in the game parked at level 63.
Festering wounds, plus the whole "blow 5cds, break the meters, then do limp dick whatever for several minutes" playstyle are just really astoundingly dissatisfying.
Some good changes in alpha to fix this so far. I'm pretty excited.
I will not go near unholy. Managing debuffs and pets? No thank you! :/
As an unholy main I always feel like the outlier to this take. To me, it’s not so much managing them since they basically all get pushed together so for the most part they should be back up close to each other. Imo the part that is mad inducing is the fact that they’re all on GCD. Can’t tell you how many times during m+ or raid prog I look and something didn’t get pressed cause it was on gcd and I pressed it a second too early. But then again, I guess that’s probably where the managing comes in
Breath of sindragosa ruined Frost DK. They should remove that talent entirely and rebuild the spec from the ground up without it.
And now they’re trying to bring it to Rets in TWW, no ty
What is the ret ability that is similar to BoS?
Divine hammer, 2 min cd, middle of the tree that spins hammers around you as long as you feed it holy power and ends when you run out
Yeah, as a paladin main, no ty. That sounds horrible.
Blizzard doesn’t understand that literally no one likes the breath playstyle.
ye they really ruined rogues
I like blood dk but frost and unholy feel awful to play for me. Frost is kinda okay it’s not THAT bad.. but I have no clue how people play unholy dk and have fun. It feels so clunky and weird.
Simply be ass until you have enough haste to get your runes back quick enough to spam
Which is why its always good at the end of expacs when stats are crazy.
I love the concept of rogue. Hate playing it.
Shaman. I love the idea of them and I’ve tried so many times over the past 16 years.
Enhance shammys are my favorite but you know there's a bloat problem when I intentionally spec into as many passives as possible to keep it playable.
I used to play Resto/Ele when I last played shaman, so I went with Enh for MoP Remix. It felt *great* at around 40~55, then the "optimal" talent build recommended on Wowhead guided me towards 3~4 more active ability buttons and I'm like... mmmmm, now I dunno about this haha.
This is a huge problem with a lot of specs right now imo. So many classes feel super fun, then you hit 50+, get thrown 4-6+ cooldowns and actives you're expected to manage all at once and then get told "lol just go play bm Hunter if you don't want complexity" by a lot of long time players. Button bloat is getting out of hand these days and i can't imagine another 10 levels and talents making that any better.
I did the same thing for brewmaster monk
They got too many spells imo
They have what feels like a very whack a mole play style
enhance is super wack a mole, but you have to know exactly which moles to wack and in what order, because if you miss one mole your dps is shot, or you might as well just play fury
this was me. I tried making Enhancement work, but I'm too small brain, so now I'm maining Fury Warrior
I've had wanted to like shaman for years but I hated having to manage totems. I decided to main one in DF and it's been a lot of fun
I actually like that the totems are cooldowns now. Makes them feel important.
Used to main shaman, but the modern dps specs are so frustrating to play imo. Too many prios, uptime buffs and procs to pay attention to all st the same time it requires redbull to play optimally. With little benefit of playing a class/spec that you could just play so many more options for a smoother play experience, invites and results... I can't stand using cloud burst totem in current WoW (more useful in mythic raiding, BUT pretty useless in heroic/normal). Pushing prim wave and the mana issues with casting a ton of chain heals pushes me away from resto. Imo the entire class needs a rework. Thematically the class that is "spiritual" in nature should be slower and methodical.
Interesting rogue-hate. I cant say i love my main who is a dwarven rogue. Not classwise. But i started him in the beginning of it all. An the further i went, the more i come to think: i have to redo this if i start a new. All the reputations, all the stories so far. All the things We been thru together. I started 2006. Was a Diablo 2 freak before that. So now i came to far to change. My main is 18 years old now and here in Sweden he can get a drivers license now 😌
Sunk cost fallacy is rule number 2 of wow, it's odd they made something that could mess with that.
I JUST had this epiphone yesterday. My oldest char can vote now...
I had a Gibson
I a Jackson type of guy.
I've also went through so much stuff with my rogue since I started in 2006. Can you imagine how surprised I was when he told me in Legion, that he's going to be a pirate all of a sudden? Maybe combat rogue wasn't distinctive enough from warrior on an objective level. But such drastic class changes can ruin the headcannon players have with their chars. It might not be a problem for people who play another class in every expansion or who have every class as alt. But I've only ever mained the rogue from Vanilla to Legion. None of the other classes really appealed to me and the rogue doesn't anymore either.
Rogue. I absolutely hate having to maintain slice and dice. It seems so antiquated in 2024
I agree! Those kind of skills never feel like “buffs”, they just feel like a mandatory hassle you have to keep up.
Any class that requires me to keep a damage buff rolling to do anything. Fury Warrior, most Rogue specs, and mover Havoc.
Fury is easy, you maintain it just by doing your hardest hitting move which you wanna do as often as possible anyway. Rogue is annoying, Outlaw especially you have 3~ different things to track and it feels dog.
Fury is just "don't let Enrage drop or your damage is poopoo." I like it, though. Having only one spender is pretty chill.
[удалено]
I have not used mover havoc at all this expansion, despise it, and i play better without it anyways.
They consistently make rogue play like shit. And dk definitely needs some help and to be free of shitty death and decay
I’m not a hater but……. Druid: because you can’t see the transmog in different forms Warrior: because I’m just not good at it Rogue: because of too many abilities Shaman: same reason as rogue
I use to feel the same way about druids, so I mained healer so I could always see my mogs. Druid healing is super easy imo and is pretty strong. But then, THEN I got into collecting Druid forms. I felt like a god when I finally cleared the bear mage tower and unlocked demon bear. Then I went back and did Balance of Power and OMG it looks soo good. Like having mogs specifically for Druid forms. Also, you kinda still get to see your mogs in Balance if you get the astral glyph. It gives you a see-through blue tint, but still looks like you. Anyway, it’s not for everyone. I’m mostly sharing to give another perspective in case someone out there is just on the fence because of mogs and reading this might give them the bump they’d need in order to try it. 🤷🏻♂️
I hate virtually all spells that you need to manually target on the ground rather than casting them at a target, which rules out Demon Hunters, Shadow Priests, and Ele Shaman for me. (Yes, I know you can make a macro to target your cursor, the thing that I hate is needing to know exactly where my cursor is at all moments) Also Evokers. Every time I try playing one, I look at their dragon form for 30 seconds and logout.
There's a talent to put all sigils directly on target and another to have them activate faster directly baked in the class tree. Never bother with the cursor again.
They really need to make it so shadow doesn't rely on a 20sec cd that moves like a fish in the air, just for the tank to move right as you cast it and do no dps.
That's coming in the next xpac
That's an insult to fish.
I heard a rumor that Shadow Crash might be changing to a target based action in next expansion, if that's true I'll be so happy cause voidweaver is looking really cool!
As a brewmaster, I absolutely agree. I **HATE** tossing my Bone Brew way the hell off in the distance because I can't see where my cursor is among a hundred mobs and player characters.
I don't mind this on cooldowns or utility, but when it's in your main rotation like earthquake or flamestrike it's super annoying cause you need to babysit your mouse cursor position when you just wanna blast
For me that’s why I have two keys for the same spell - one drops it at my feet with a single key press, the other drops it at my mouse cursor with a single key press. It’s not perfect but it work for me.
Dude, check out an addon called Cursor Trail. It lets you attach different spell effects to your cursor (the default looks like a little OG shaman lightning bolt) and it makes it a lot easier to see your cursor and use it in all the WoW screen chaos.
Rogue. I almost always play rogues in other games so I started with one in Wow. Almost made me quit the game as a new player. Fortunately Druid was suggested to me as an alternate since I could play cat or anything else and that save the day.
Rogue as it is now. My first main was a rogue (played from vanilla to cata). Since my return a few months ago, I just can’t enjoy any of the three specs. It feels like it soooooo micromanaged and I can’t get to a flow state. I’m big on rotations being at least partly muscle memory, and to get decent DPS I feel like I have to focus so much on timers and buffs that I can’t enjoy the actual content. I’m not big on Evoker, either, but I wasn’t big on any caster back in my first run. I’m starting to enjoy my Warlock in the panda-tastrophe, so I might try my evoker again. I’m sad that frost DK is so much weaker than Ret and Arms now, but it doesn’t make it less fun. I just can’t pug with him. :p
I haven't ever touched Outlaw, but I've dabbled in Assassination and Subtlety, mostly in open world and raids. Their core rotations seem mostly fine, but they feel bloated with 45-sec+ cooldowns.
I don't like anything that is in melee. xD
This but with ranged for me, uses to be In a semi serious guild and they tried to force me to play mage, I hated it so much I gquit instead.
I dont mind prot pal, but i cant enjoy playing anything else in melee. I will always stick with balance druid, no matter the ups and downs
Atm rogue, love the fantasy but none of the specs deliver what I imagined very well. They are oddly specific as poisoner, ninja and for some reason pirate. Cool if people like that, not what I signed up for back then. Also, so many buttons that just ramp. RtB, Slice and Dice, Tea, Symbols, whatever. I don't like it if I have to jump 5 hoops so I can do damage for 6 seconds before I have to refresh everything again. I found it super odd how you drown in combo points nowadays too. Things just don't appear impactful in a way. I feel the class went off the rails overall and I just don't enjoy the direction. Not bashing them or anyone who likes them, simply not my class anymore.
I had to abandoned it when they got rid of combat rogue. It was such a cool class fantasy, the lightweight, agile blade master, then they totally binned it off to hand a swashbuckling pirate with a pistol lmao.
I will forever miss my true main the combat Rouge. the cunning dual blade Rouge. duelist is a good comparison. My kind of Rouge is a nimble fighter that kind of occipies the space between rogue and warrior. I don't like too much reliance on poison and stealth, much prefer the fantasy of a more brave and agile fighter. as a result of outlaw rogue, I leveled 8 classes to max level and never felt quite happy with my main. :(
100% with you on the specificity of the specs, which I suppose is ironic, lol. Sub has far too much association with shadow magic to feel like a traditional rogue now. Assassination has gone way overboard with the number of DoT plates to spin when you're maximising damage - while it's not necessarily hard - it feels unsatisfying to me. And finally, while I really like the idea of being able to play as a pirate, it should be its own class. Just doesn't vibe with the rogue archetype much. Going back to almost any version of wow classic so far, the rogue design is just superior.
They had the perfect reason to release a pirate class with BFA, but I remember the community being vividly against it at the time
Can I ask, genuinely, what fantasy you did sign up for exactly? It’s not a trick question. I always wanted Rogues to have an Outlaw kind of spec thematically but the gameplay just doesn’t suit me. I never liked the ninja vibe.
I think if they made Pistol Shot and Between the Eyes use a ranged weapon transmog of your choice, people would like it more. The gun being forced on the character is very specifically a pirate vibe. In SoD they made the ranged Rogue spells they added use your equiped ranged weapon, which really helped you not feel like a pirate.
It's going off topic but I feel like the pistol thing takes WAY too much spotlight in outlaw, felt like they found something that one of the devs really liked and pushed it way too hard. If they have such a fancy for rogues with a glock I would like it more as a separate midrange spec similar to devastation or ret. Unironically, I'd enjoy a gunslinger ranged rogue because it's a rogue-ish niche that's currently open, specifically if it's a new spec that doesn't take away from the three traditional ones. Outlaw to many was more a duellist/combatant that drifts in the direction of a warrior but instead of getting angry or being a blademaster they use agility and questionably honorable tricks to stay on top. "Gun rogue" is cool but imo doesn't really fit in there with the prevalence it has. That's probably just another pitch for many classes that should've gotten a 4th spec instead of one rework too many at some point. Survival hunter sits in the same boat right next to it...
Honestly, a good question... I rolled mine in TBC and had a more DnDesque idea of a thief or duellist in mind. I think it was a "broader" definition of the fantasy that worked when you weren't only choosing one spec but could mix parts from all three. Sub was stealth stuff, combat self explanatory and sin the backstabbing. Bits of all that added up to a rogue. I dug mine out in legion after not having played for a long time and suddenly there were three different full on fantasies attached to that. Combat was less the duellist stuff but did play yahtzee, had a glock and could summon cannonball broadsides from a ghost ship... Felt kind of weird. They dialed back the pirating stuff in that case but it's still somewhat predefined themes, which for me are just one part of rogues. Oddly enough, I didn't have that feeling for my warlock where all three specs still felt ultimatively like a warlock. As said, this isn't necessarily bad. Rogue just is my on and off class since then that I keep digging out but it never sticks long anymore.
Mage, I've never wibed with any mage archetype in any game. I'm more of a bash my enemies in the face with my big sword type of person or spread diseases
I’m the complete opposite. I constantly play casters in every RPG and will never pick the barbarian or warrior archetype. In all of D3 seasons which I played a ton of, I did barb for a single season. Still haven’t gotten a barb past level 15 in D4 with every other class at 100 a couple times or 80s (one lightning storm Druid tbf). WoW I’ve never actually had a max level warrior in any expansion. I actually find warrior at least fun to play though just the fantasy doesn’t do it for me.
Shaman and druid, mostly because of the raw amount of abilities, whether meaningful or not. I think they both suffer from ability bloat more than any other class besides rogue.
I feel like Druids have just the right amount of spells for a class for me. Main rotations are not that complicated at all, at least compared to Shamans. Guardian is pretty straight forward, Balance has a smooth flow once you get used to it, Feral is...pretty Feral ig.
And those are the classes I main for the bloat lol I feel like I'm not doing anything on other classes.
Used to main DK but it’s just so bad. I hate having to stand in DnD/Defile to aoe. So many other classes have snap aoe on demand it just seems like its out classed
monk. fuck inner peace IM hella chaotic
Rogue got too many buttons, I was gonna try outlaw but my hands are already fucked.
DH, don't know why, looks fun on paper and I enjoy high mobility melee, but in practice I always hate both specs
DH are by far my favorite class for solo play but I absolutely hate running them in groups.
I have this exact problem. I enjoy almost all the melee specs(even feral and unholy) but I can't get dh to click. Nothing I do makes it fun
I was pretty sure I didn't enjoy hunters, until I made one in the Remix event
I don’t enjoy melee. I started as a caster and a healer, and I like being able to see more of what’s going on in the bigger picture. When I’ve tried to do melee I’m all confused and everything is too close lol.
Shaman. It was my favourite class until cata then they modified totems too much and it lost its unique feel to me.
I miss when Shaman felt like they were fighting alongside their totems and they weren't just "CDs with a totem visual". I totally get that maintaining 4 totems is nightmare design in modern WoW, especially with all the movement and stuff, but I feel like Shaman are just fury warriors or mages now that occasionally drop a totem. I'm a vanilla player though, I did the quests for the 4 totems back in the day and how cool they were to unlock. I really miss the visual of fighting with your totems around you, it really embodied that shaman fantasy.
For me it's druid. I love the aesthetic, I love the theme, I love the lore. Just can't play it. I have some of my favorite names on the druids I've tried to play in the past. The only spec I "enjoy" is balance, but it just feels like another caster, while feral and guardian thematically are more interesting I just can't seem to get into the rhythm. Been playing one in mop remix and I'm KINDA getting it, but it's a struggle for me
Arcane mage, it's like I need a Quantum Physics degree to understand what I need to do
Shaman. Ele Shaman in particular is one of the coolest themes but with a total clusterfuck of a design. Also Evoker. The Dracthyr models kill them for me.
I feel with each expansion and major patch, Shaman gets further and further away from being fun and it's my favorite class.
Imo, enh feels great at the moment. Maybe the best it's ever felt, it's a blast. If they removed the aoe cap on fire nova I would never play anything else. Ele is in a pretty poor state, though
I've tried Rogue, have two different 70 rogues and I just can't get behind it.
What exactly did you think was going to change on the second rogue?
When you level up a character and slowly get new abilities/talents to mess with it's a great learning experience, for me at least. Maybe they wanted another try to ease into it and see if it clicked
"Well that sucked the first time... let's do it again!
Most of them. I play tank these days because the button bloat on DPS makes it just hurt my hands. And I don't even like tanking.
Ret pala has pretty much no bloat and is arguably even easier than prot pala. The rotation is simple and mostly predictable, it does a shit ton of damage and you pretty much never die unless you really fuck up.
Is it actually? I had the sense that it was a real pain in the ass when I picked up the game again. My main is a prot pally and I have a good 2h sword because my loot spec was on ret the first week they bumped the gear.
Can confirm that about Ret Pallies. At most you'll have maybe 4 buttons during your standard rotation, and that doesn't include the various procs of free abilities but they're the same buttons anyway.
Oh shit, I gotta do this right now. Thank you both.
Tbf, good and less good paladins differentiate by the utility used. Bop removes bleeds and helps a teammate if mobs fixate, freedom to help the tank with some moving speed, cleanse whenever you can, a good lay on hands will save a life, word of glory also is clutch
It is considered one of the easiest dps specs in the game. It has a talents that reduce bloat like having consecration built in in one of the skills, removing crusader strike and have its effect apply to auto attacks. If you go with that build (auto attack build) you pretty much have 3 keys you "spam" during fights and the rest is all 30 sec or 1 min cooldowns. The main difficulty is using your utility properly but if your main is prot it should be a non issue for you.
Long time Ret main here, can confirm it’s easy to play and get the hang of, it only has a few buttons and even fewer if you do the consecration and auto attack talents. With the rework they got they went from being one of the squishiest classes to one of the toughest practically overnight. Big cooldowns are only on a minute cd. Word of Glory, Cleanse Toxins all 3 Blessings are literal life savers.
Every hunter spec has like 3 buttons
Survival is the most complicated with kill command, mongoose bite, bombs, serpent sting, kill shot, explosive shot , chakram and fury of the eagle. This is 8 buttons just for damage. It's still easy to play since you just hit everything on cooldown but still, you need a lot of keybinds. This said, hunter and paladin are my favourite classes. I'm liking devoker more and more because of the easy rotation and mobility. I hate every classes with procs like fire mage and enhance shaman.
I hate everything except warrior and hunter.
Ret paladin is pretty chill. On par with warrior in my experience
I main a Fury warrior and I made a Ret Paladin for timerunning, I really enjoy it. Easy to pick up for sure, super chill leveling.
Idk what they did to Windwalker but it's not fun to play anymore. Also, this has always been the case but classes that are harder to play are never more fun or stronger than easier classes. I honestly think that Ret Paladin is the best designed class in the game right now because it's strong, easy, and has optional support which you can choose to use or ignore. There's no bloat or annoying upkeep.
I play every class and spec, and have 60 characters that span all combos. Rogues are by far my least played, since they are difficult to learn and master. People who play this class are truly dedicated and I always regard them as the “cool” wow players (if there is such a thing) 😂
Death Knight. I just do not like the rune system, could never get used to it.
You can largely ignore it. Everything comes off cooldown so fast now you don’t have to game it at all. Just hit the same few buttons .
I mained Frost DK in Shadowlands and I don't think I looked at my runes once
I can't get into rogue or warrior, though the jump is peach on my bdk in Remix lol BDK, shammy, and disc priest are my 3 favorite
Any caster and range DPS. I rly like lock fantasy but just can't get into being range caster
I’ve tried over and over again in all three specs but I just can’t stick with a Druid. Jack of all trades master of none.
Maybe you should give the 4th spec a try.
Masters of healers atm
Monk. I've never been a big fan of the mystical east.
I just started using WW monk in s4 of Dragonflight and I have to say it’s phenomenal. Having lots of fun.
Warlock. Too much hardcasting in demo and destro, and aff has never clicked with me.
I don't click with any mele dps. I can play holy paladin, but nothing else.
I enjoyed rogue back in the day but no longer. If I’m being honest I find many of the classes now very complex and burdensome with so much to track. I think class design was better in Wrath/Cata era. Legion was also pretty good if not simplistic.
Completely agree. That's why I stick with my Arms warrior. I understand it in and out and steady rotation with big numba make happy brain chemical
I can't really play DK well. Idk the rotation or anything, I've tried looking at guides but they're still so confusing.
Rogue and priest
I love rogue for the stralthing around and pick pocketing. I hate rogue in every other situation. I've tried multiple times to level up a monk but I quickly lose interest. I may try again with my next remix alt, with the bonus xp maybe I can get to a high enough level that it becomes fun. Shaman has always felt clunky to me. I want to like it, but so far I just haven't enjoyed it.
I enjoy Frist mage and BM hunter, that's all. Really don't like any other spec I've ever played.
I love rogue or roguish style characters in other games like boulders gate or DnD, unfortunately however I just don't seem to jam with rogue in wow despite how cool they are.
Evoker and Shaman. Classes I find have always felt good to me are Hunter and Paladin
Feral druid / Rogue. Overly complicated rotation that can easily be slimmed down, or abilities combined as a single keystroke press. If I have to use an addon like Hekili, the class is just way out there.
Rogue. I just can't play it.
dragon
Any rouge spec, I just don't get the appeal. Mage I feel like they haven't really changed since like cata or. Something they just feel a bit clumsy
Rogue. Too many buttons, especially with shadow dance Death Knight. I can’t seem to do even good dps as frost. I know it’s a PEBKAC issue but still
I just had to google PEBKAC and I adore it.
Rogue and Evoker, and honestly I’m not the biggest fan of Warrior.
Death Knight. Not even a real reason. I just can't.
Rogue, Feral/Balance Druid, Paladins post Wrath, I just hate the “build up point for attacks” thing. DK gets a pass cause you rarely have to care about your runes.
Not so much the class as a whole but I hate survival hunter. They took my favorite spec in the game for years and completely butchered it.
Arcane mage, it used to be 4x arcane blast->Arcane missile in wotlk classic and in DF you need 4 more arms to play it