1.9 patch notes

[Calantus]

The mage in question was 33/18 ice-spec, though they did have both trinkets. Without the ToEP (the ZG trinket is a piece of piss to get) it would have been only ~350 less damage, depending how exactly frost bolts are affected by plus damage and how the damage talent in frost affects the bonus. So ill be generous in loweing it to roughly 2.5k of damage. Hardly a small chunk of health. He would also tell you he needs a couple more pieces before he is happy with his gear. Mages are hardly broken as fuck. I'm more afraid of mages than rogues/shaman/druids/paladins/priests. And yes, even with 70 FR on my shaman's PVP healer gear (infernal headcage+fire libram, ony key, incendis eagle mail bracers, EF chest, FR resist shoulder chants) I still had reason to be wary of fire mages.

[Evil Elvis]

The mage in question was 33/18 ice-spec, though they did have both trinkets. Without the ToEP (the ZG trinket is a piece of piss to get) it would have been only ~350 less damage, depending how exactly frost bolts are affected by plus damage and how the damage talent in frost affects the bonus. So ill be generous in loweing it to roughly 2.5k of damage. Hardly a small chunk of health. He would also tell you he needs a couple more pieces before he is happy with his gear. Mages are hardly broken as fuck. I'm more afraid of mages than rogues/shaman/druids/paladins/priests. And yes, even with 70 FR on my shaman's PVP healer gear (infernal headcage+fire libram, ony key, incendis eagle mail bracers, EF chest, FR resist shoulder chants) I still had reason to be wary of fire mages.

Yes, mages are broken as fuck.  A priest can mindblast you for 2.5k with ToEP and ZHC.  It's not mages being strong, it's the rediculously overpowered trinkets.  The mage might be able to burst that faster on you, but If you're able to survive that burst, I know exactly which one I'd fear more with those trinkets.

70 FR is something along the lines of a 22% damage decrease for a fire mage.  And for most classes, frost is the class to fear, not fire.  Frost can get the 2x crit damage (like every melee class gets), and can get talents for a 50% crit rate when the target is frozen  Fire has some real problems, like fireball > pyro at high +dmg gear levels because the up-front damage is way more important than the dot.  Not to mention all the resists, and worrying about a good portion of your damage being dispelled.

And how can you fear mages the most?  You don't even have to worry about AP with purge.  If mages are the class you fear the most, it's simply because shaman are incredible in 1-on-1, and because the long ass shaman vs pally/druid fights aren't that common.  Both of those classes can give you more problems than any non-trinket crutch mage.  In order for a mage to win against a shaman, the mage CAN'T fuck up.  And the shaman could still survive half the time if they simply decided to hit GW and run for it instead of trying to fight a mage that has the initiative.

[SurfD]

I will second the disclaimer that mages are broken as fuck.

My main is a level 60 mage, with over 20 days /played AT level 60.
My guild currently contains some of the best Horde mages on my server, including some of the best geared mages, and the ONLY ones on our server with Full Netherwind (go go only Horde guild to take down neff).

To paraphraze one of our top guys: 1% of mages are GODS for 20 seconds every 5 minutes.

I am talking about people who have Talisman of Ephermal Power, Zandalarian Hero Charm, nearly 400 points worth of +damage gear, and specced 31 arcane.

We have a video on our website of one of our top guys messing around with his full Netherwind set in Battlegrounds.  Someone described it like watching the Deathblossom attack from the movie Last Star Fighter.  Him sitting there, spinning around, tossing 4k frostbolts in all directions, 1 shotting many of the people he hit (He loves instakillin people as they run by on their mounts, they dont even get to dismount).

However, takeing all this into consideration, He is basicly useless as shit when his cooldowns are all burned.  And thats the problem.  Mages (provided they have a near obscene amount of +damage gear and the two BEST caster trinkets in the game) are Gods every 5 minutes.  Any other spec besides 31 arcane/20 other, without those trinkets, just cant put out the burst damage most other classes can do.

For mages, its either all or nothing, and you damn well better be cookiecutter spec like everyone else if you hope to compete..

To give you a good example, I am 40 fire (yes FIRE) / 11 arcane.  I currently do NOT have either of those trinkets and top out just around 210 in +damage gear.  Another member of my guild is 31 arcane, 20 fire, with both trinkets and around 360 +damage gear.  At the end of a Molten Core run, he has usually done in excess of DOUBLE my damage, even though we both cast nearly non stop.  As soon as I get either of those trinkets, I am respeccing 31 arcane, simply because it will drasticly increase my burst damage.

And if you think those trinkets are easy to get, think again.  Sure, I will have my ZHC soon enough (regular guild runs for ZG is the only way to go), but if you go on pickup runs, you are going to be rolling against damn near eveyrone in the raid to get it.   ToEP has such a crappy drop rate its obscene.  I think the last time we had one drop in our guild mc runs was nearly 3 months ago.  Oh, I dont know where you got the idea that ZHC is difficult to get.  It is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY easier to get then ToEP.  Damn near every Mage in my guild has ZHC now, pretty soon we will be giving them to Druids and Hunters, where as most of our mages would sell their mothers for a ToEP.

To summarize, mages are currently the ONLY class in the entire game which has been universally agreed upon buy its own members to have 1 viable talent tree.  Thats it.  Its either go Arcane and slave to get the best two trinkets IN THE GAME, PERIOD, or be content with never approaching even remotely the damage output of other ranged classes.

Oh, and fear Troll Mages in 1.9 the change to Berserking means they will be able to hit even more obscene pinnacles of burst damage output.

[Fabricated]

Hunters are so overpowered right now it's not funny.  There was a short-lived thread on the Rogue boards about how to beat them :  it stopped after someone pointed out 'You Don't.'

I dunno, I'm hardly geared out in good stuff and I eat hunters alive with my warrior. I've murdered hunters in Tier 2 sets with my Arcanite Reaper Lite and mostly green armor.

Mages are the class that kill me 9 out of every 10 deaths in PvP. I'm fighting someone else and get hit with waves of arcane explosions from 2-3 mages while taking regular damage fighting whoever it is I'm on, and die before killing anyone... or I'm doing just...anything, and get hit by 3-4 1.5k frostbolts from nowhere and just die instantly. I was basically the bitch of every mage in AV when I got to do it.

[Ironwood]

Um.  Yeah.  That's because you're comparing apples to oranges.  You're not talking about one on one fights and you're also talking about warriors vs mages.

Here's a little flash - You guys are supposed to get owned by mages.  Especially when there's more than one of them.

A Rogue one on one with the same level skilled hunter has no chance.

Rogues and hunters are meant to be natural competitors.  It's meant to be a fifty-fifty thing.  It's really fucking not.  Disarm trap is useless, stealth is useless, stuns and stunlock is useless.  And all the while the pet has just unstealthed behind you and is chewing your fucking face off.

Warriors can handle hunters better because they have the lastability to ignore the fucking pet and KILL THE BASTARD.  Which is why mages own you  - since they ignore all that lovely metal on your body and can keep you at arms length.

[Evil Elvis]

Eh.  Completely agree on with you on not comparing mages vs warriors in the situation he described.  But like I said, on equal terms, I give a mage 50/50 odds against an arms/fury warrior.

If the warrior is able to get a charge in, it's bad news.  If he's got his anti-root trinket on, it's bad news.  If he resists one or two of your spells, it's bad news.  Like most mage fights, in order to have a shot at winning, you really can't fuck up at all.

And nothing is as one-sided a fight as mage vs demo warlock.  Not even hunter vs rogue :)

[Dren]

You just posted that comment about warlocks before I could ask:

What is the balance on Warlocks in PvP?  I'm leveling one up and right now (lvl 46) he's a PvE solo'ing God.  This seems to increase exponentially as I go up in levels.  Does any of this translate into the PvP scene?  I really hear very little about Warlocks in these discussions.

[Fabricated]

Um.  Yeah.  That's because you're comparing apples to oranges.  You're not talking about one on one fights and you're also talking about warriors vs mages.

Here's a little flash - You guys are supposed to get owned by mages.  Especially when there's more than one of them.

A Rogue one on one with the same level skilled hunter has no chance.

Rogues and hunters are meant to be natural competitors.  It's meant to be a fifty-fifty thing.  It's really fucking not.  Disarm trap is useless, stealth is useless, stuns and stunlock is useless.  And all the while the pet has just unstealthed behind you and is chewing your fucking face off.

Warriors can handle hunters better because they have the lastability to ignore the fucking pet and KILL THE BASTARD.  Which is why mages own you  - since they ignore all that lovely metal on your body and can keep you at arms length.

Er, I was just talking about the whole "hunters are overpowered" thing. I wasn't aware that hunters were supposed to be the rogue's opposite number in terms of class.

You said hunters were overpowered, I assumed overpowered meant "better than a 50/50 odds to win against all other classes", not just, "They own my rogue" like mages own my warrior.

You just posted that comment about warlocks before I could ask:

What is the balance on Warlocks in PvP?  I'm leveling one up and right now (lvl 46) he's a PvE solo'ing God.  This seems to increase exponentially as I go up in levels.  Does any of this translate into the PvP scene?  I really hear very little about Warlocks in these discussions.

One of my guildmates is a 60 'lock and PvPs a lot. When she's with at least a couple other people she usually gets quite a few more kills than the rest of the PvPers in my guild. She's basically 100% destruction specced though, and I don't know a lot about their talent trees.

As for tactics...I have no idea. All I know is when I'M fighting 'locks they irritate the shit out of me with their fear.

[Evil Elvis]

You just posted that comment about warlocks before I could ask:

What is the balance on Warlocks in PvP?  I'm leveling one up and right now (lvl 46) he's a PvE solo'ing God.  This seems to increase exponentially as I go up in levels.  Does any of this translate into the PvP scene?  I really hear very little about Warlocks in these discussions.

Against warriors/rogues, I'd say it depends on if you have the initiative.  If you don't, you're probably looking at an uphill battle.  Hunters are going to be a real problem too, specifically beast spec.  Their frenzied pets can damn near solo a cloth wearer.  It's getting nerfed, but you still won't have any way to get it off you, or keep it from screwing up your cast times.

It can also depend on your pet.  You'll defintely want a succy out for melees, and felhunter out for casters.  It's going to be fairly difficult to take down a priest without a felhunter.

So, really, their inability to adjust quickly to the situation (because of pet summon time), lack of any real escape ability, and difficulty to play makes them kinda rare.  If you can deal with that, they can do some pretty wicked dps, and really annoy the hell out of people.  I'd really suggest taking engineering, for the grenades.  Having a good way to get seperation from someone on the move (besides death coil) is extremely important for warlocks.

[Ironwood]

You said hunters were overpowered, I assumed overpowered meant "better than a 50/50 odds to win against all other classes", not just, "They own my rogue" like mages own my warrior. 

Well, to be honest, I'd say this as well.  A good hunter, especially a NE hunter, can now run rings around with the whole freezing trap thing and scattershot thing.  And, yeah, the invulnerable and tanacious pet is like fighting two lvl 60's at once.  I think a good hunter DOES have a better than 50/50 chance against any other class.

While the rogues are struggling to find anyone to beat.  We just keep getting the little nerfs that fuck us up - Like all our skills having some weird miss calculations.  Parrying Blind ?  WTF ?  I can't hit with half my skills anymore and have to seriously think about respecing to a preparation rogue just to get an even chance.

Fuck that.

[Merusk]

I love that the hunter is overpowered grouse is using two different specs of hunter interchangably.  A hunter can have Aimed Shot in all builts, but they CAN NOT have "RAGING PET OF DOOM" and Scatter Shot in the same build. BF is 31 in beast and Scatter is the 21st point in Marks.

I'm a Marks build and I can wtfpwn casters (so long as they don't see me first. Then they blink/ shield into range and I'm toast) all day, but rogues eat me up because my pet can't eat through them before they eviscerate me to death.  Scatter only helps me to break their target and refocus my pet, since the next damage breaks it.  Same with feign/ trap. 

Then again, none of the Horde on my server run around alone either.  I don't get the opportunity to stun or freeze then run to range and take the time to aimed or even multi-shot because as soon as I stun them some Shaman or Warrior is right on top of me, sharing the business end of their axe.  Usually while that damn druid guarding the node with me is too busy spamming moonfire to bother with a rejuve.  Fuckers.

[Ironwood]

Nonsense.

While I accept that you can't have the same blast and the 'invulnerable and unstoppable' pet, that doesn't mean that your pet is not hugely powerful on it's own with, bear in mind, it's own talents.  I am aware of the talent trees in both, having my own orc 33 hunter which I gave up because he's just Phenomenally BORING.

However, my points still stand (mostly because I wasn't making the points you thought I was.)  If you're getting eviserated up the ass by a rogue in close combat, can I just say :  You suck playing Hunter.  Best you give it up.  When you have scattershot, what the fuck are you doing letting him get that close ?  When you can feign and freeze with macros which then force your target to stand like a tit for 10 seconds, why aren't you getting away ?  When you have Wingclip, ffs, which is he getting close enough to eviserate you ?  When your pet on Aggro will Spot a Hidden Rogue from a fucking mile off, how did he get behind you ?

Oh, and if you're playing offensively in the battlegrounds, that's worse.  Your job is to guard the flag mate.

 

[Morfiend]

As a rogue, hunters are very nasty. If they get the jump on you and they are good players, there is probably around 10% chance of the rogue wining. If the rogue gets the jump on a hunter the rogue has about a 60% chance of wining.

Now Rogue vs Warrior is insane. If the warrior is well geared and gets the jump on a rogue, you ahve about a 2% chance of wining. If the rogue gets the jump on a warrior, he has about a 20% chance of wining. This is if the warrior has some MC gear. If the warrior has BWL gear, then the rogues chance of wining is cut down by about 75% more.

Its really really bad.

[Ironwood]

Good God.  Proof positive, if any were needed, that 98.7% of stats are made up on the spot...

[Calantus]

I never talk about 1v1 pvp when I talk about balance. It simply means very little to me at all. I even had an auto-decline for duels for quite a while, but took it out 'cause it was a PITA to reconfigure it every time a guildie wanted to duel and I didn't want to refuse it to them. I rarely ever am alone anywhere in the game, even when farming/grinding/questing/tuber gathering. When I say how much I fear a class it relates to how they affect the battle in group PVP, specifically how they affect my role as healer. So what I'm saying is when I see someone coming into a battle to either help the assist train or attack me (which will often ALSO be joining the assist train), I would rather they be a rogue/paladin/druid/shaman/priest (talking damage only) than a mage. Hunters get higher cause their fucking pets basically force you to spec for less interrupts or you are just gonna be screwed when they set their bat/cat on you. IF they're beast spec their damage is pretty damn nasty, and if not scattershot is such a bitch (I've not really ever had a problem with hunter damage themselves, maybe cause it's hard to notice ranged damage without a big spell graphic). Warriors because they practically immune to fear, and MS is all kinds of fucked up in group PVP (nerf please, I'd never even think of replacing the last warrior in a pvp group, now thats broken imo). Warlocks are about even with mages IMO, they are less pure scary, but their arsenal of CC combined with CoT makes them pretty nasty.

Mages don't NEED the 2 trinkets and AP (EDIT: was typo'd as "ToEP"). Those trinkets add roughly 1k damage to a crit frost bolt. Now that's pretty insane, but you don't NEED that extra damage. That 3k frost bolt before? Well without trinkets you're still hitting for 2k crits. That's enough to 3-shot anyone with lucky crits, and frost mages are almost as bad as rogues in getting their shit to crit. Most of the time you won't be 3-shotting people even if you are lucky, 'cause group PVP is all about assist training these days. A 2k crit is a big spike of damage and quite annoying when you are healing I must say. I've also been happily healing away only to cop a Frostbolt in the back, then a blink->FN->CS->Frostbolt->CoC->Fireblast combo to the face and just die from 4k+ health (depending on the char im playing). It happens quite a bit, and it's a real pain in the ass since there's not much I can do about it. And don't forget mages get blink, FN, CS, and poly which are all very useful in group PVP (also CoC but I rarely see it used well, not sure how effective its snare is in group situation).

[Dren]

I'm 99.999% sure that you can't satisfy everyone all the time.

[SurfD]

As a mage, there is roughly 3 classes I fear in the game.  Hunters, Rogues and "Warriors with giant swords of DOOM".  Maybe I should fear warlocks more than I do, but I dont seem to get into many fights with warlocks in small scale combat.

Hunters I just hate for the above mentioned reasons because I am Horde: Shadowmeld + Aimed Shot + Auto Shot + Multishot + Arcane shot generally =  me running back to my corpse without even having seen the elf fag who killed me, and usually before I even have time to register the fact that I am dead.  If the guy is beast spec, It generally means I run for my life and hope i can get away from the pet due to lucky blinks before it chews my face off.

Rogues, I dont generally fear in one on 1, but its rather their annoying ability to materialize out of nowhere every time some other alliance has me down to half health and 1 shot me with an obscenely overpowered Ambush crit.

Warriors however are another story, especially on my server.  The crappy warriors I can deal with easily, especially if i get the drop on them.  However, we have FAR FAR too many warriors running abouts alliance side with giant purple swords of DOOM, who can litterally kill me in 3 or 4 shots worth of white damage.....nothing quite so fun as charge, hit, mortal strike, execute, you die....

[Ironwood]

Actually, on that note, I had a weird one last night and I'm not sure if it was a bug or lag or what.

Warrior charges into me, hits me with the something that looked like MS and I, naturally, start bleeding.  So I vanish and sprint away - Yes, I know I'm bleeding, but I need to get away because I'm at about 25% health - and then something, I know not what, kills me.

It felt like some timed damage or something similar, but I looked through the combat log (have you ever tried searching a combat log during a BS holding in AB ??) and I couldn't see what the fuck it was.

Do warriors have some timed release burst damage ?

[squirrel]

Actually, on that note, I had a weird one last night and I'm not sure if it was a bug or lag or what.

Warrior charges into me, hits me with the something that looked like MS and I, naturally, start bleeding.  So I vanish and sprint away - Yes, I know I'm bleeding, but I need to get away because I'm at about 25% health - and then something, I know not what, kills me.

It felt like some timed damage or something similar, but I looked through the combat log (have you ever tried searching a combat log during a BS holding in AB ??) and I couldn't see what the fuck it was.

Do warriors have some timed release burst damage ?

They have a skill that does absolutley insane damage to a target that is below 20% health and has a slightly longer range than a regular melee attack, but not much. Used on bosses where 20% is still a lot of HP and runners, coulda been that.

As a mage, there is roughly 3 classes I fear in the game.  Hunters, Rogues and "Warriors with giant swords of DOOM".  Maybe I should fear warlocks more than I do, but I dont seem to get into many fights with warlocks in small scale combat.

Warlocks make my mage cry - and my lowbie lock (43) eats casters alive - even well played shadow priests. The worst are Demon spec - they can insta summon a fellhunter who provides 100 resist to everything and eats buffs/debuffs as well as silencing. Destructo locks aren't as bad, you just have to out mana them and watch for conflag but decursing hurts them a little. Course in 1.9 destruction takes a hit to their big burst crits (no negative vuln bonus on the curses).

And mages have really huge issues, but you don't really see them until you play one, kinda like rogues. Every one just remembers getting 2 shot by them, but they have big needs for talent tweaks and even more pressing itemization needs - which is changing thankfully.

[Ironwood]

Nope.  Wasn't execute.

[XMackenzie]

Possibly whirlwind?  It has an 8 yard range .. so moderately useful to a Warrior attempting to hit a runner.  Style effect is sort of a red wispy thing?

[Hoax]

This thread just became really kind of sad...

Are we that much better then the WoW boards?

Rogues are crying and I'm supposed to feel bad?

[Calantus]

Mage talent trees are still some of the best talent trees in the game, including the revamped ones. Their only failing IMO is that combustion is unattractive, AP is arguably too powerful, and ICS/IAE are too "essential" for the PVP mage. Yeah there's shit talents in there like improved frost ward, but you'll find crappy talents even in the revamped talent trees (tho I can't think of one in the druid trees...).

[Ironwood]

Rogues are crying and I'm supposed to feel bad?

Goodness, where on earth did it say you had to feel bad ?  More to the point, where did you see the crying ?

These things always ultimately end up 'reroll newb' anyway.  Lvl 40 warrior and climbing.

 

[Rasix]

My 60 rogue is now just a farming bitch.  Ironically enough I built him as a PVP alt and enjoyed playing him more in PVE than PVP. And I like my shaman better for PVP even if I'm not so good at it.  As a rogue, I just found myself getting into too many situations where I had no reasonable chance of winning or even surviving if my timers were up.

I'm not sure if they've done something to rogues that I'm just not aware of, but a rogue hasn't gotten remotely close to killing me in the past two days of doing AB. Sure, I'll hear the cheapshot snap, but after I recover (if my trinket is down): I just drop a snare totem, 180 jump/frostshock, and it's pretty much a done deal.

[Hoax]

Since BG's = 85%+ of the pvp you'll ever engage in (sad but true) I dont see how the hell rogues are underpowered.  Frankly I think I should take this argument to the intentional imbalance or stealthers in pvp games threads in game dev but I dont think rogues should be able to solo people.

A good rogue in say, AV (the BG with the most larger-scale combat going on) will rack up tons of kills and can definitely help swing battles.  I have had my warrior chain cc'd by rogues leaving me out of the fight for 10+ seconds (I dont like blind!), but typically all it takes is for rogues to play defensive, protecting the squishy targets for them to make a big difference.

Warrior charges mage/priest/warlock, gets off one hit.
Rogue appears, stuns warrior.
Everyone blasts warrior to kingdom come.
Rinse, Repeat.

A few rogues playing defensively can increase the survivability of cloth casters by a wide margin.  Also rogues are perfect for making sure someone stays in range long enough to die, after venturing into no man's land.  Unlike, say druids, rogues have a role that they perform better then anyone else.  If you dont like that role, dont play the class.  But I'd hardly call them gimped.

Rogues are the best setup-class, the best finishing class and still have stealth which even with perception is pretty damn good.  Not to mention rogues working in tandem can wtfpwn anyone who is sitting behind the battle lines gaining hp/mp before anyone even knows they are there.  I dont see why a stealth class should be able to 1v1 any class in what is a close to fair fight.  You have stealth, what the fuck are you getting into fair fights for?

I expect that kind of logic from people with sniper, snake, wolf or xxx in their name I'm very dissapointed in you guys...  

[Rasix]

Well, I never did get to play my rogue in a BG (I had quit right when BGs first hit) and have yet to.  I think I was somewhat soured by the Tauren Mills/Crossroads red-rover-gank-a-thon experience.  I did find my rogue to be most effective in a support role.

You make good points, it's just hard for some people (including me) to concede that a stealth/assassin class could face one-on-one situations where they have the element of surprise and really have no conceivable possibility of success.

[Paelos]

Two or three good rogues working together in AB or AV...I just can't begin to describe what a tide-turner that is. The problem is you'll have them spread out all over the place ganking crap nobody cares about for points.

[Merusk]

Hoax and Paelos reiterated my point.  I'm getting WTFpwned by GOOD, SMART rogues.  Even with Track-Hidden, I have a back and I can't see you in stealth. The rogues sneak in around behind me while someone, ANYONE else provides a distraction that I can't ignore.  While taking care of them, the rogue comes up, gougues me for 2 points, gets a quick sinister that usually has crippling attached and I'm fucked.  End of hunter unless it's one of the rare times I'm not defending all by myself.   I have no trouble with rogues who don't follow this pattern and try to take me on without being roguish.

Note I'm Alliance on a 4:1 ratio server.  That means there's 2 big guilds on Horde side, that's it.  Ruined and Blighted, if you want to PvP or PvE on Horde-Side you HAVE to be in one of these guilds because they're the only ones large enough to be doing MC or group-pvp.  I can name at least 4 MC guilds on Alliance Side and 2 BWL guilds, and they've attracted some real 'winner' personalities.

[Fabricated]

Hoax and Paelos reiterated my point.  I'm getting WTFpwned by GOOD, SMART rogues.  Even with Track-Hidden, I have a back and I can't see you in stealth. The rogues sneak in around behind me while someone, ANYONE else provides a distraction that I can't ignore.  While taking care of them, the rogue comes up, gougues me for 2 points, gets a quick sinister that usually has crippling attached and I'm fucked.  End of hunter unless it's one of the rare times I'm not defending all by myself.   I have no trouble with rogues who don't follow this pattern and try to take me on without being roguish.

Note I'm Alliance on a 4:1 ratio server.  That means there's 2 big guilds on Horde side, that's it.  Ruined and Blighted, if you want to PvP or PvE on Horde-Side you HAVE to be in one of these guilds because they're the only ones large enough to be doing MC or group-pvp.  I can name at least 4 MC guilds on Alliance Side and 2 BWL guilds, and they've attracted some real 'winner' personalities.

Ruined? We have them on Proudmoore. Extreme catasses. We also have a kabillion Thorns of <Blank> branches and a Penny Arcade guild.

Funny enough I haven't really had any problems with other guilds on the whole, mostly just individuals.

[Paelos]

Yeah Proudmoore has a lot of douchebags. And on TS, they are douchebags with accents.

[Yegolev]

... and a Penny Arcade guild.

There's your problem.

[bhodi]

I've got a 60 rogue with ~20 days /played @ level 60 as well, I might as well chime in here as work is slow with the holidays and all.

A lot of the chatter is "I am Scissors. Paper is fine, Nerf rock.". One thing people need to remember is that duels and 1v1 are VASTLY different than pvp in battlegrounds. Everyone says this but no one can say it enough. It is an EXTREMELY rare event where you can do something like this unmolested:

    4s stun       ~500 75%crit     3s stun                              5s stun     ~1100 75%  10s stun                      4s stun       ~1100 75%      ~1400 100%
Cheap Shot -> Sinister Strike -> Gouge -> (wait 2 secs) -> Kidney Shot -> Backstab -> Blind -> Restealth -> Cheap Shot -> Backstab -> Cold Blooded Evis

Damage Done:  ~4k 'yellow' damage, ~1k 'white' damage. On leather.

Notice that is WITHOUT blowing your vanish. That is a 100% deadly stunlock combo that only really works on rogues or other helpless classes that've burned their cooldowns. There are other combos for each class, if you clicky the linky.

I don't play a lot of battlegrounds and that is becuase I'm seal fate dagger specc'd. If you do any serious PVP at all you need swords. It's simply too hard to get behind someone while they are moving (and have it register!) to get the backstab off. With that said, rogues (even me) are EXTREMELY deadly/useful solo in these (non-WSG) battleground-centric instances:

1. Guarding the squishies (priests, mages, druids, warlocks) in the back line)
2. Stealth-contesting points in AB (using sap, blind) if defenders number less than 3
3. Defending flags in AB by harrassing cappers (we have innumerable ways of staving off flag contesting long enough for reinforcements to arrive
4. Killing squishies if you are attacking a flag and fighting around it (forget about defending, this only works if your rear line is compressed forward enough so your rear line can reach their rear line where you are for heals)
5. Stunning enroaching front line targets for focus fire

Now the bad news. Numbers 4 and 5 WILL get you killed. You are #1 target priority for nearly everyone on their team when you come out of stealth swinging and you are in range of ALL of them. In #4, with good backup and a bit of luck, you can get some heals in (don't count on it in PUGs) and in #5 you can run back to your team before the ranged can finish you off.

Rogues play an integral part of a well balanced team; They often the first casualties on either side (remember, you get no HKs while dead!) If you work in pairs, you can usually ambush and kill one or two healers before you get jacked.. this will usually turn the tide of the batttle. YOU, however, will likely be taking a dirt nap.

[cevik]

Rogues play an integral part of a well balanced team; They often the first casualties on either side (remember, you get no HKs while dead!) If you work in pairs, you can usually ambush and kill one or two healers before you get jacked.. this will usually turn the tide of the batttle. YOU, however, will likely be taking a dirt nap.

HKs are so overrated.  Wins get you Honor.. HKs get you crap.  After a good 3 runs of AB, Titan Bar will be pointing out that I'm getting 0 honor for every HK.  I can get 60 HKs a night defending the farm as a healer or 500 HKs a night assaulting stables in shadowform and I'll get basically the same honor, maybe +/- 1000.  It's because wins are vastly superior to kills. 

[bhodi]

HKs are so overrated.  Wins get you Honor.. HKs get you crap.  After a good 3 runs of AB, Titan Bar will be pointing out that I'm getting 0 honor for every HK.  I can get 60 HKs a night defending the farm as a healer or 500 HKs a night assaulting stables in shadowform and I'll get basically the same honor, maybe +/- 1000.  It's because wins are vastly superior to kills. 

Very true! It's harder, however, in practice, to stand @ the LM flag alone and watch a huge battle at the blacksmith with your hands in your pockets...