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Encrypted Text: Should all rogues use daggers?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. When the art team at Blizzard developed the class icons for World of Warcraft, it based them on that class' weapon of choice. Mages cast spells through their crystal-laden staves, druids fight with their paws and sharp teeth, and paladins wield a mighty, righteous hammer. The rogue class has been represented by the swift, poisoned dagger for years. While our dark leather armor and our brittle yellow class text are easily recognizable symbols of the rogue, the dagger is our one true sigil. While only two of our abilities can't be used with swords or other weapons, both assassination and subtlety rogues are still forced to bend the knee to the dagger god. Even the most stalwart combat rogues carry a dagger in one hand. Why not go all the way?
Class Q&A: Rogue
The class Q&A series continues with Rogue, the stabbiest class. Look for a more complete analysis later; for now, here's a quick summary, with the full Q&A after the cut. Priest is now the only class left, but don't despair, my clerical friends – I'm sure they saved the best for last. I hope. Rogues are for DPS. Historically, they have been "selfish" - little group utility. Right now they have better utility and synergy. They've always been strong in PvP, because of stealth, stun, and burst. The devs are happy with the way the combo point/finisher system is working right now. A proposed solution for Vanish! "...Vanish puts you in stealth for 1 second minimum no matter what else happens." Hunger for Blood is meant to boost PvE damage without doing much for PvP, and as such it works, but is boring. Changes are in store for the long run. They want it to be more reactive, and also put it back into PvP. They would like to make Subtlety competitive in PvE, but if they make it too good players will all switch to it because of the utility. Long-term, some Sub utility might become core, or some damage from other trees might become core so the choice is utility vs utility (not utility vs damage). Rogues underperform in dungeons, as a consequence of scaling so well in raids. If you're not doing good DPS in raids, "the problem exists between the chair and the keyboard." Rogues are too survivable when they can use all their tricks on one target, and too squishy when they can't. Long-term, they want to move some survivability to passive abilities. Combat Daggers is dead because Blizzard thinks that it was clunky and unfun. Don't expect more class-specific content any time soon - they would like to do it, but it's low on the priority list. The full Q&A from Ghostcrawler and friends is below.
