Rogues are Easy
saedo — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 12:59
Heh so I was on vent that night but I ain't as quick witted to respond. lol But this topic's been on the back of my mind so I'll just blurt stuff out here.
Rogues are easy. Easiest dps class imo, which is part of the reason why rogues can top damage most of the time. Most only really have to pay attention to 3-5 timers, 3-5 buttons to mash. And I've raided in every raid spec there is cept for maces. Don't have to care about mana, cast times, swing timers, rage starvation, shot clipping, pets, buffing, other ppl's health bars, etc. In the most dire of situations where ppl are out of "gas", rogues can still dps (barring the get the fuck out of there situations). We are an unlimited source of dps.
But getting the most dps out of a rogue is another matter. Why are the top dps rogues in top guilds? Why can bad healers stick with top guilds? Because of natural selection. There's a fuck ton of rogues out there. If you can't strive to the top, then look, there's another one right around the corner. Bad healer? Replace him? Well typical follow up question, where do you find another? Guilds will tend to work most strats around what healers (and tanks) are capable of, not what dps does.
Anyone can probably play a rogue and get 45-60% of it's potential out by button spamming whatever. This is just going by some personal gut feelings so don't pay too much heed to this part. lol A person with some knowledge of the rogue class, like SnD is good, can probably squeeze out 60-75% of the potential. A person with more knowledge of some cycles and sticks to em can probably squeeze out 75-90% of the potential. The last 10% is a bit touchy though. This is where the luck/lag/human judgement/reaction times factors in. In reality, stuff happens, good or bad. A good string of procs or a bad streak of lack of procs do warrent a cycle adjustment just when that happens. However, this does require more of the on-the-fly quick judgement to adapt. This is a rather fine line to walk cause improper reactions can hurt dps. Don't ever expect 100%, you'd need the moons to align and every proc and buff/debuff going full steam for you.
Another matter was with PvE rogues being top in PvP as well. I actually think it's the other way around. If you can be top in PvP, you can do PvE providing you have the appropriate knowledge for it. Arena PvP, which I haven't really done much, but from what I gather is not straight dps for a rogue. You do watch 2-10 health bars, watch timers, manage some CC, target switch when needed, etc. All that is pretty dumbed down in pve since you can basically cut it all down to watch timers, hit buttons.
Well that's all I remember for this rant. lol
I think you may have missed
Dufe — Sat, 04/05/2008 - 11:55I think you may have missed some sarcasm in Shihli's comment. In fact, you basically just made the same point he was making.
I want in on this. Shihli
Barqz — Sat, 04/05/2008 - 11:21I want in on this. Shihli argued earlier that joe shmo warlock in all greens isn't the best player because he isn't in purples. I disagree, Gear more or less measures your achievements and progress as a player, Not your skill. Joe Shmo in greens could quite possibly be the best warlock in the game, he may in fact know the most about his class, Not having purples pretty much means he doesnt raid, or just likes to have fun, or he may have purples but such a high repair bill that he threw on greens in the time being....or maybe he got his account hacked and is waiting for blizzard to restore his lost goods.. Point is you cant judge skill and knowledge by gear, thats judging a book by its cover...and In my experience thats always a bad idea. As for rogues being easy, I did 3 shot a t6 warrior who tried to gank me in nagrand earlier, and then continued to spit on him for his failure to kill me.
Live Every Moment, Seize Everyday
I still say stressful does
Dufe — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 17:38I still say stressful does not equal difficult. There are plenty of other factors that make healing difficult, but you just cannot count possible consequences as a measure of difficulty.
I've read some of these
Disrupter — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 17:55I've read some of these posts... and... well...
Wether there are 10 healers in raid, or 5.. I'm going all out to do as much dps as possible. The only thing that limits me from doing more dps, is what we call a threat cap.
And since PK's threat is more then mine, I do not reach this threat cap, therefor, I do not stop dps :). The only reason I might stop dps, is , if it'll kill me if I do it. Otherwise it's pew pew all the way :).
The Healer vs Dps in difficulty department... I have an easier time in raid on my Mage, then say, on my Druid. Yet, in Arena, most of the time.. I feel better at my Druid then my Mage. You fuck up on a druid and you'll generally get away.. if you fuck up on a mage.. without a healer.. your probably gonna die.
That's just my two cents.. Dps and Healing are both quite difficult at time, but, to be an exceptional healer, IMO...
You know where the damage is coming a head of time if that is possible, you load a heal up before the damage even LANDS, just because you know EXACTLY where its going to happen. If the fights like that, those type of healers are going to rock socks compared to some people that may be.. "whacking moles" .. or topping people off that just took damage.
I personally, generally take the whacking mole approach, I'm not very good :P.
Remember our 1% wipe on
Shihli — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 17:21Remember our 1% wipe on Council?
One sinister strike could've spelled the difference, G.
I believe council was given
garreth — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 17:25I believe council was given as an exception earlier.
But a single fight does not a stressful toon make.
<Tangent> Obviously the
Roguered — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 16:42<Tangent>
Obviously the hardest class in the game to play once WotLK comes out is going to be the bard. I mean come on, it takes pure skill to hit a rift without missing a note and if you fuck up, well everyone will know by the twangs that play when you miss a note.
</Tangent>
I just need to nuke one
Dufe — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 16:39I just need to nuke one fallacy I continue to see in these discussions. This concept that "having a more severe consequence as a result of failure to perform for a given class/role means that that class is more difficult to play" is just not valid. Sorry. More stressful, sure. But it does not logically follow that it is necessarily more difficult.
I would argue that it's not
garreth — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 16:49I would argue that it's not more "difficult" in that it makes pressing the buttons any harder, but it's definitely more emotionally draining.
You never hear rogues go "Man, if I just got one more sinister strike off the tank wouldn't have died and we wouldn't have wiped at 1%". Well, I guess you kind of do in regard to kicks on fights like Kael and RoS, but those are the exceptions not the norm.
FYI You don't see many
Kognus — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 14:58FYI You don't see many high-ranking arena healing paladins for the following reasons:
1) Holy paladins are completely terrible in 2v2. A very good one with a superb soul link/syphon life warlock can maybe get Gladiator, but not nearly as easily as a resto druid, disc/holy priest, or resto shaman could (and any of those three have multiple specs/classes that they can work well with in a twos makeup).
2) Holy paladins are even worse in 3v3. If your team can't lock down a holy paladin long enough to kill someone with CC/interrupts from two dps and one healer (especially a resto druid) or three DPS then you are terrible or that paladin is really exceptional.
3) Paladins are good in some 5v5 makeups, but not usually as solo healers. They typically need to be paired with a disc/holy priest, resto druid, or resto shaman to work and once you've decided to roll with two healers you've basically made a decision about a couple of other things:
i. You're going to have a warrior.
ii. You're probably not going to have a rogue.
iii. If your second healer isn't a reso shaman (not usually the right choice) then you're going to have an elemental shaman or an enhancement shaman.
So basically you're left with one other spot on your team making the total number of viable fives compositions with holy paladins basically three variations on the same very simplistic theme. That combo isn't even flavor of the month anymore either like it was in season one and for big parts of season two. dot dot gib teams and euro comps are a lot more common now. Holy paladins still have a place in fives, but it's honestly a lot more limited than it used to be and it is the ONLY bracket where they are really comparable with any other healing spec in the game.
Hence, the fact that there aren't a lot of high-rated holy paladins on arena teams is pretty much the silliest evidence for paladins being easy to play that I've ever heard. Holy paladins are pretty much arena hard mode as healers go.
Unbuffed Stats in PvP Gear: 10207 hp, 7082 mana, 392 resilience, 1830 attack power, 31% crit chance, capped hit
LoL Saedo...the converastion
Aidin — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 14:49LoL Saedo...the converastion is like a raging river, a dam was put in place and you totally broke it! lol
lol I come back and found
saedo — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 14:46lol I come back and found I may have started up the time bomb again. ;p
Anyways, some responses. Rogues being easy doesn't diminish their values or anything. Like I said, free unlimited easy dps. Pretty essential for most fights unless you want mana pools to be really stressed.
As for letting slacking on dps... Um, sorta? Typically, I have a goal in mind. I spend hours on spreadsheets fiddling with gears and buffs to determine a theoretical dps. Then I work to see how close I can get to it. That's my game. How much I can squeeze out. Which is why I never vanish unless I absolutely have to, within 95% ish of pulling aggro. Which does seem to sometimes make Pk nervous. ;p
And last night I did purposely take a dps dive to experiment. Why? Well I do like to test things out for myself. And I stayed by a rogue trainer til raid was filled to determine what type of raid it was. And honestly, with certain ppl sitting out for others, no offense, but it didn't seem to be a balls to the wall max dps type of raid so I went with it.
As for top players in top guilds. Well, best skilled does not neccessarily mean best player. Um, what do I mean by that... lol Well a player's "ability" let's say is pretty much skill + gear + experience. An abundance of any of the 2 can, prob most of the time, cover for what's lacking (up to a point). An example I can use is probably Nihilium. Their rogues are piss poor at theorycraft. I believe there was one article one of them wrote that was flat out wrong and rejected by the theorycraft community. So their rogues are more treated as that they got the gear, and spent the hours beating up on the boss for the experience to get a decent acceptable amount of dps to get by, but one should never blindly go "but Nihilium does this".
Well the top *blank* are in
Gares of War — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 14:23Well the top *blank* are in the best guilds is not a complete falsehood. The top guilds are where they are currently due to the skill of their raiders.
A guild, usually, does not simply invite every given individual that applies. They have them go through a trial by fire and rate them by a standard. Are they 1000+ dps, do they move in combat, are they a clicker/keyboard mover. If yes, then ginvite. Of course, some guilds do get bad players, be it friends they want to gear up or otherwise.
But I do dislike the idea that people who are the in the best arena teams are the best players. I find PVP is =/= to PVE and although I think pvp can make you a better player, I think that pvp is very unequal regardless.
There has been statistics that show the highest brackets are a set group of 5-6 classes. Also, certainly you can't purchase an arena team to carry you either :X
I love this line: The
Shihli — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 14:10I love this line:
The proof of this is that the best rogues on the server are found in the top guilds and that you don't see any high-arena-ranking pvp healing paladins.
The "best" players, as viewed by the playerbase at large, are ALWAYS the ones in the top guilds and PvP teams. Why? Because they're the *top*. They HAVE to be best, right?
Obviously, Joe Schloe the lv. 70 warlock in greens isn't the best, he has no purples! He CAN'T have ANY skill at all ... he's not in purples!
Also, I would've made the point that Paladins as healers in arenas aren't as common for the same reason that you don't see a ton of high-ranked hunters - the way the arena is set up, and the way the rules are structured, does NOT lend itself to the playstyles of these classes.
In essence, there's no top-ranked paladins because there just *can't* be with the current rule set.
And Isilra, if you're reading this - get fresh with how other classes work before running your mouth :P
I'm not sure what part you
Aidin — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 14:04I'm not sure what part you don't agree with, or if I just said it wrong...but we seem to be on the same page.
If you're slacking...and can't figure out how to fix it...your potential for raid invite goes down. If the slacker is a rogue...NP...find more pew pew. If your slacker is a healer..well um...recruit for a month or 2 and hope for the best?
LOL, yep, it's just pure
garreth — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 14:06LOL, yep, it's just pure statistics:
Out of 324,989,323,521 rogues on this server there are bound to be some truly incredible ones. Out of ... like, six pure healers on this server, the chances that 2 or 3 of them are truly performing optimally is slim.
I see your point Aidin, but
Shihli — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 14:00I see your point Aidin, but I don't completely agree with it. Thanks to WWS we can analyze who isn't pulling their weight, and structure raid invites accordingly.
And as we move further towards Sunwell, dps *can't* hide. Can we, as a raid, DOUBLE our raw DPS as it stands right now? If not, we can't kill Kalecgos *or* Brutallus, no sense in trying really.
Not sure if anyone told
Aidin — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 13:56Not sure if anyone told Shi...but jic...this is stemming from comments made by the guild rogue app in vent after Sunwell...not a raid critique.
OOOOOHHH! That's right, I
garreth — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 14:03OOOOOHHH! That's right, I forgot Shi missed this one.
Basically I had a good vent debate with Isilra as to Pally vs Rogue. No hate, it was a good conversation. He basically pulled out the "lawl pallys are easy" comment on vent and I ripped into him. An hour later and I think we had most of the vent server in our channel.
His arguments stemmed from the logic that a truly good rogue is hard to find, but anyone can spam flash heal on a target. The proof of this is that the best rogues on the server are found in the top guilds and that you don't see any high-arena-ranking pvp healing paladins.
Saedo and I were dong MrT
Aidin — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 13:53Saedo and I were dong MrT the night this discussion ensued...I missed out on the debate...which is probably a really good thing but he relayed info in party chat to keep us entertained.
I come to lend a perspective as both a Healer AND a Rogue. I 100% agree with Saedo.
As a healer, my FPS make me really bad at raid healing...when I get my new ram and memory...watch out. But I'm a beast at single target healing.
Can a "bad healer" hide in a raid and do little to nothing and get by? Yes. Why? Cause most priests are shadow, most pallies retardins or prot, most druids feral or chicken, most shammies enh or mage wannabes. It takes a rare breed to WANT to roll a healer. So yea sometimes you may carry a bad healer through raid because other options are not so abundant.
Can a rogue who isn't maxing his potential hide in a raid? NO. Cause you are a dime a dozen. I laughed at islia(spell?)'s concept that rogues are hard. I'm a healer at heart...my second class was a mage...so far just casters. So I decide to try a rogue. I'm a NUB ..a pure NUB rogue. I only 1/2 know what I'm doing...but I love to PvP on my rogue. SStep in raid blows monkey balls...so I decide one day in Kara I'm gonna respec back to combat (lvled combat) and see how I fair in dps. I realize that my 1/2 pvp gear and 1/2 Kara epix aren't gonna put me on top of the damage charts...but I'm still curious. Low and behold I'm trading off FIRST AND SECOND place on the meters with a SSC/TK hunter. Why? cause rogues are EASY. (please don't take this wrong...it's not easy to be an exceptional rogue and keep a raid spot, I'm not down playing the effectivness of Saedo, Shinzwei, Darksight...and many more, cause these fellas are GREAT rogues.)
If my rogue does a 1/2 assed job...so what
If my pally does a 1/2 assed job...people die and get pissed.
Which sounds harder to you?
I'm confused as to the train
Shihli — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 13:50I'm confused as to the train of logic that led to the idea that our dps has slipped. It's consistently in the 10-12k range every night we raid.
It's not to say we can't stop improving, because all of us should continue to try and improve our game. Do remember that parses will show you what everyone does, but it won't tell you the conditions behind it.
Dps seem slow on Naj'entus? Remember that he gets about 10-15 seconds of immunity to ALL damage every 60-80 seconds. Seem slow on Supremus? Maybe we're running melee-heavy that night.
There's multiple viewpoints to consider before making a blanket statement about *any* facet of the raid. This includes the "heals r hardr!!111!!111one" statements that I hear quite often from Garreth :P
Healers have to respond to changing situations on their raiders, I'll grant you that. So-and-so needs a 7k heal in 3 seconds, such-and-such needs a decurse, that sort of thing - I get it, it's reactive playing instead of "playing to the script" that dps'ers have to do.
However, consider that if I slip up on my shot rotations, I drop my personal dps by upwards of 100 points. If I don't watch my pet it gets itself killed, dropping my dps by another 100 points or so. I don't think a Flash of Light is going to heal *less* if you do it "out of rotation" - but I WILL do dps if I use shots outside of my rotation.
But overall, I want this silly frivolous argument to die ... it's obnoxious hearing it from all angles at all times of the night, about how hard it is to do this instead of that, and how X class has it easier than Y class. We've all got it fairly easy, all things considered.
That massive whooshing sound
garreth — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 13:56That massive whooshing sound was the point of my point shooting over your head
I'm stating that we run with competant and high-performing healers. Thus paving the way for us to bring less of them and more dps these last few months. Thus our dps has not really been forced into an environment of an over-stacked healing raid where we need to go apeshit on dps.
My question was: Do we have an environment in raid where individual dps'ers can relax a little because there is more dps as a whol in the raid?
I know that when there's an 8th healer in raid, I absolutely let off a bit. Do dps do the same thing?
Pretty much agree here. I'm
garreth — Wed, 04/02/2008 - 13:25Pretty much agree here.
I'm not dumbing down rogue dps when I say that it's "easier" than being one of only 6 or seven healers on, say, Gurtogg. I'm not knocking it, nor am I demeaning any of it's contributions. It's just not as purely complicated nor frantic.
Your point about shitty healers sticking around in top guilds vs. shitty rogues is extremely insightful, and I hadn't thought about it in that way. I know some terrible healers in Illidan farming guilds on our server. Yet, they arguably have the best rogues. This was used as the arguing point that "good healers must not be required for end game, but good rogues are.", which is a fallacy of logic
It's more likely the scenario you described: You can kick out a shitty rogue and there's a dozen more waiting to fill his shoes. You kick out a 4/5 T6 Holy Paladin and... you get ... what? There's no huge waiting line of healers out there. Thus healers get drug along at not their maximum potential and classes like rogues filter themselves out to only the best.
I've heard stories of T6 guilds on our server bringing 9-10 healers on fights we easily do with 6 or 7. This coddles underperforming healers, giving them an environment to stay bad. It then massively encourages the dps to pick it up.
So the question then becomes: Is our DPS in Hamfist where it needs to be? Since we run with the bare minimum of healers, has our dps slipped?