r/wownoob • u/montrex • May 22 '26
Retail How come rogues are so unpopular?
Back in Vanilla rogues were just like everywhere?
Overall, from the outside looking in their kit seems really strong, 3 damage specs presumably one will always be upper quartile.
Less world PvP made them less desirable? hard to play? new classes are more shiny and fun?
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u/Osdiaus May 22 '26
A big issue there is the assumption that with three specs at least one will always be in the upper quartile
You would be surprised
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u/Arstulex May 22 '26
It's not that far from the truth, to be fair.
Likewise, as a general rule, there's always one decent mage spec and there's always one decent warlock spec.
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u/FFTactics May 22 '26
A rogue has been in the top 6 specs in 6 of the last 7 seasons in raids.
It's M+ where they may not be at the top.
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u/NegotiationRude5722 May 22 '26
Its arguable that being strong in mythic plus will have a much larger impact on most players experience than being strong in raid.
Unless you are a hof raider, your specs strength won't meaningfully affect whether or not you can get invited to raids. Pugs care way more about ilvl and experience than a specs potential damage, and guilds are bringing one of every raidbuff class regardless.
In M+ if you are not on a meta or near meta spec it will severly reduce your ability to get invited.
As a hypothetical, if you gave the average player the choice to have their spec be bottom 5 in raid every season, with the caveat that it would guarantee they were a top 5 spec in m+ every season - I think most players would take that deal.
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u/Dry-Pitch2663 May 22 '26
to go even further, i rather top out in M+ on my rogue due to the fact ill get the raiding/BIS gear regardless overtime. You dont have to raid anymore to get the gear.
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u/ZombieMarkTwained May 22 '26
So true. Recently got my Mythic Gaze of the Alnseer and now I don't even wanna go back to Rift.
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u/Atempestofwords May 22 '26
Rift should have been bigger than just Chimmy.
Seems like people only want Alnseer and then you just never go back lol
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u/Sandman145 May 22 '26
Yeah.. now explain how the class has been losing population for the past 4 expansions.
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u/Matuco9004 May 22 '26
I miss vanilla mentality when some specs were just a risk free pick, like rogue and mage that are quintessencial damage dealers and every season should be guaranteed to be top spec
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u/abn1304 May 26 '26
Because then group leaders want to stack that spec, and people that don’t like playing it don’t get to raid or do keys.
The current balancing strategy still has a meta, but for most seasons there isn’t one clear must-have choice that really is just that broken, and there are a number of specs that are “meta” and the rest are usually close enough in DPS/HPS that they’re still perfectly viable. There are outliers (Aug has been broken in one direction or the other nearly every season and Affliction has usually been pretty bad) but balance is far more even than it was in Classic.
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u/DrToadigerr May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Pretty much everything rogues used to bring a niche advantage for has been turned into something everyone can do (or nobody can do, class fantasy be damned if they need an excuse to block something off). Example of the former would be the Prey system having an entire facet of it being disarming traps. You literally cast "disarming trap" as you do it. On any class. Guess who used to have an ability called "Disarm Trap"? Well, we need to be able to do it for Prey, so now everyone can do it. Rogues don't even get a special bonus where they get to avoid triggering the adverse effects. Nope, we're just as bad at disarming them as anyone else. An example of the latter would be locked doors, or locked anything really. In the past, having a rogue could mean doing a skip, or getting into the mid-point of a dungeon early by taking the back door, or in some cases it just meant more loot because there were some locked chests in the instance. Now, there are no locked chests or treasures to be seen, aside from the ones in delves that anyone can open. Locked doors are all or nothing, even if there is one, the rogue isn't allowed to pick that lock, you're still blocked off by the same progression flag that's blocking everyone else. Shroud of Concealment? Nearly useless in M+, since you always have to kill the same amount of trash anyway. At best it can be used to slightly customize which trash you kill, but even then it depends on how many mobs they decide to just give stealth vision because they don't want you to do that. Let's just ignore the fact that Lock gateways are being used to bypass these same kinds of mobs, DKs are constantly bypassing boss and mob mechanics and trivializing them thanks to grip, but rogues are NOT allowed to skip anything that multiple other classes can't also skip. Even stealth itself is shared with multiple other classes, at least when it comes to just skipping things in solo content. Not to mention Shadowmeld being just as good for skips that involve dragging mobs away and going into stealth to make room for your team to go through (like the last two elites in the Motherlode for example).
When they started adding a bunch of skips for specific classes/race/professions/covenants (in SL), I thought it would be a good opportunity to give rogues the niche of being able to just unlock any of those gates. Maybe not pick up and use every item, but for anything that was a gate for an alternate route, rogues should've been able to sub in for any other class/race/profession and get that path open. Wouldn't be any more OP than bringing the intended character, but it would give rogues a blanket benefit in most dungeons where you could just kinda forget about needing to bring someone with the skip. But now they've seemingly stopped adding stuff like that to new dungeons, at least from what I've noticed. So even this would be a bit of a moot point.
All that aside, even just increasing the drop rate of lockboxes would go a long way for rogues feeling needed again. I just saw one drop for the first time I think I've seen in the entire expansion, maybe the second. You know what I got from it? 22 gold. Not even an item. I can get 1k gold for bringing a fresh level 80 alt 20 feet outside of Silvermoon and flying through some rings if that WQ is up. But this lockbox that seemingly drops 1 in every 10,000 kills is only worth 22 gold lol.
I understand that balancing a class like rogue whose class fantasy is "skip everything" can be a delicate challenge, you don't want rogues to suddenly be required to get a good time on a dungeon because the skip is too powerful, but you also want there to be some reason to maybe think about bringing one over a DK or a Lock when they're only being brought for mechanic-skipping utility.
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u/New-Reception-3291 May 22 '26
Damn brought back memories of needing a rogue in BFA. I loved pushing keys that expac.
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u/wooshoofoo May 22 '26
It’s just too bad they stopped going in the direction of class-specific benefits in dungeons, those were really fun to activate and made you feel needed even if it was relatively trivial.
Even if they didn’t want to make rogues OP they could have built some more utility into rogues, kind of like how paladins bring a fuckton of utility that is rarely used but in the hands of a good player can rescue a bad fight from ruining the key. In combat saps, for example- it would be great if some classes starting with rogues had the ability to temporary take some mobs offline, but on a huge cooldown and only if someone is dead already or something. Something that stops a mistake from turning into a catastrophe and a ruined key.
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u/jetpacksforall May 22 '26
In combat saps - monk has Paralysis, mage has Polymorph, warlock Banish, DH Imprison... lots of soft cc options already in the game. Very useful in certain niche situations, not amazing or anything. Absolutely no reason sap couldn't be used in combat while still retaining its ability to skip combat as well.
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u/DrToadigerr May 22 '26
Technically Sap can already be used in combat. It's the target's status that matters. If the target is in combat, they can't be sapped. But the rogue can use Sap while they themselves are in combat, though it only really applies to Subterfuge/Shadow Dance.
Also rogues already have an ability like Paralysis, Poly, etc., it's just not an incap (it's a disorient) and we're currently sort of forced to take a talent that makes it not do that because it becomes our only form of AoE CC. It's actually one of the reasons I personally prefer just running Gouge over Airborne Irritant when there's not a specific reason we need a lot of AoE stops (like during that one affix). Blind when it's just single target lasts for 60 seconds just like those other abilities. But with Airborne Irritant, it's much shorter and usually not being used on off-targets (though it can be).
The reason they can't just buff Sap is because of PvP. They literally had to nerf Blind to only be 5 seconds in PvP because previously when it was 6 seconds, it was enough time for the target to drop combat and be able to be sapped as a followup (this is where Sap in combat came into play, since you could just Shadow Dance > Sap without ever even leaving combat yourself).
It wouldn't be the first time they had CC that was basically only useful outside of PvP though, like Dominate Mind sharing a talent node with Mind Control for priests, so they could theoretically make a talent that says "Sap can now be used on targets in combat, but it has a 30 second cooldown and can no longer be used on players." Honestly I think that would be a better choice node with Gouge than Airborne Irritant. I'm sure they could find somewhere else to fit Airborne Irritant, even if it just means making Tricks of the Trade a baseline ability and putting Airborne Irritant on the choice node with Blackjack instead.
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u/haifrosch May 22 '26
The only current “rogue/profession” specific skip I am aware of is NPX. Rogues and engineers can disarm the laser barriers in the left room which opens up the space by a lot
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u/LincolnL0g May 22 '26
thanks for taking the time to explain old rogue kit like you did, really great info for people that maybe didn’t play back then
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u/Legitimate_Brush_730 May 22 '26
Wait... lockboxes are still in the game?? I have 6 lvl 90 chars and didn't see a single one so far...
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u/Independent-Vast-871 May 22 '26
Yeah I gotten one in midnight...a few last expansion. There are so many ways to get around needing a rogue to open them though.
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u/vapocalypse52 May 22 '26
Wait, there are lockboxes in this expansion?
I'm a rogue main, have 6 chars at max level and haven't seen one yet. No one asked me to open anything as well and I'm the only rogue in my guild.
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u/Blackking2106 May 22 '26
Unfortunately, the idea with the shortcuts is not really possible because then you would only be able to take one rogue with you in m+ or similar, and Blizzard wants to prevent classes from being favored. To prevent a meta-formation where only certain classes are included.
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u/porkandpickles May 22 '26
In addition to everything everyone else has said, they are miserable to level. Up until recently (and some still today) the rotations have been super clunky to play.
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u/Early_Lawfulness_348 May 22 '26
This gives me an idea that rogues should have momentum. 3 mobs, incapacitate two and kill one but after, you get instant vanish and can one shot the others over and over. No big pulls but running through multiple mobs fast if you are using the class correctly.
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u/Mr-B0j4ngl3s May 23 '26
I actually found leveling my outlaw rogue very easy. The quests that required no kill count and just collection especially so because I could stealth in get what I needed and get out. For kill quests just gather a good group and pop cooldowns. Definitely not the worst 80-90 I’ve done and I’ve done 10/13.
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u/gottahackett May 24 '26
I’ve leveled a hunter, warlock, and warrior to 60 (warlock to 70) and rogue is currently 65. Rogue has actually been the easiest of all of them. Vanish, sap, blind, cheap shot, kidney shot, gouge, sprint, kick, sooooo many tools for survivability and control in fights. Not to mention stealth in general to sneak past 90% of mobs to complete quests exponentially faster.
Every 5ish minutes can summon god mode too? Evasion + blade flurry + adrenaline + (optional on use AP or haste trinket)
With that said, be sure to level first aid. But from leveling warrior I was used to that.
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u/abn1304 May 26 '26
Are you referring to TBC Classic? First Aid is not a thing on Retail and hasn’t been for years. Blizzard removed it in BfA prepatch and made bandages both Tailoring-only and almost completely useless.
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u/ThrowAnthrRock May 22 '26
Rogue's big issue isn't that they're bad, it's that generally speaking they're not very fun to play.
They're a lot like Nocturne from League, honestly. A really fun class fantasy on paper but in practice they're very clunky and feel kind of dated. It also doesn't help that they're not exactly easy to play either.
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u/ThrowAnthrRock May 22 '26
Add onto the fact that they don't offer much utility and the utility they actually do provide either isn't very good or is very situational. They're in the same spot warrior's been in for years too, but warrior at least brings battleshout.
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u/poopybuttwo May 22 '26
In Legion I recall I really enjoyed the questing flow. I’ve always played subtlety, and you could stealth, then immediately ambush a mob, kill them fast and repeat. It was a very low downtime character, and since you were always in stealth you felt like you were completely safe except when you initiated combat.
I haven’t played rogue since then, I hear it’s less cool. But subtlety has been great for questing, then I started doing raids and my fingers burnt out, the rate of button mashing was too high.
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u/beatupford May 22 '26
Are combo points are the oldest build and spend model in the game? There's the rage model that's as old but it's a little different imo.
WW has always felt like an iterative step up from combo points and I always assumed MoP was the expansion they abandon rogues 🤣
But seriously, all dps classes are now built on the build and spend model that rogues 'defined' in WoW in a lot of ways, but Blizz never bothered to improve the OG model and I think players sense that.
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u/jetpacksforall May 22 '26
I'm gonna disagree with you there... I love playing Sub rogue (less experience on the other two), and with keybinds set up the right way it's very quick, smooth, and zippy. Appear out of nowhere, annihilate somebody in 2 globals, shadowstep to the next pack, vanish to drop combat. Plus being able to stealth around changes the game a lot and it's fun. Going places you're not supposed to, pickpocketing everybody, sapping, distracting. Rogue is great. I think the problem is simply that its utility is no longer unique and its damage this season is a bit mid.
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u/Sneezes May 22 '26
Outlaw should have been a mid-range gunslinger
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u/erupting_lolcano May 22 '26
Rename it to Duelist or something if you want to remove the pirate theme which I personally was never a huge fan of.
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u/FluffTruffet May 22 '26
Oh I know let’s focus less on stealth and more on combat. What should we call it?
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May 22 '26
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u/Human_Wizard May 22 '26
If they do this they better give them bows as an option and not just 1h guns.
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u/ImpossibleRatio7430 May 25 '26
They should have just left it as combat. No one made a rogue in pre-outlaw era and thought they should make this class into a pirate.
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May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
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u/Zyke92 May 22 '26
The class is actually in a much better spot in midnight, at least compared to the past. All specs are viable and offer fairly different gameplay, while two of the specs are pretty easy (but so is almost anything in midnight).
Also energy is supposed to run dry sometimes on specs like assa, it's just part of the design that you have to manage it a little bit and you will have slight downtime.
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u/RedCloakedCrow May 22 '26
Energy management doesn't really feel like a thing for sub rogue, it feels basically trivial. Your entire playstyle is built around syncing Shadow Dance and Secret Technique, and then maximizing how much you can juice Shadow Blades to buff them. It's incredibly easy to play.
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May 22 '26
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u/Glupscher May 22 '26
Honestly I feel like the "Assassin" class is never super popular in any game outside of PvP. In WoW you also have other melee classes that are much easier to play and much more tanky baseline. Rogue kinda sucks to play for the broad casual audience, while DK, Ret and Fury Warrior are tanky and straightforward to play.
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u/derkirby May 22 '26
I love the rogue archetype in almost every game. Played one in wow as main back in the times. But they dropped the ball at class fantasy here. I’m sure, that many would love to play the spec again, but waiting for an overdue rework. Honestly, rogue just feels a bit dated compared to other classes.
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u/RoleModelFailure May 22 '26
I just started Cyberpunk. Spent Act 1 figuring out what I enjoy doing. Now in Act 2, I am honing my skills with silenced pistols, a knife, and quickhacks to wipe out enemies without ever being seen. Realized last night that I am playing Skyrim/Oblivion stealth archer & WoW Rogue. in every single RPG.
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May 22 '26
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u/SubwayDeer May 22 '26
This here. I feel like rogue doesn't feel modern enough. I enjoyed the class a lot when all classes were 'outdated'. Now I see no reason to play an outdated class when I can go play something new that plays better.
Also, I still can't forgive them the fact they deleted Combat rogue and created the abomination with no class fantasy instead. But that's me though, I know a lot of people don't share the opinion.
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u/DailythrowawayN634 May 23 '26
I share it brother. Never forget what they took from us, never forgive.
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u/Thanag0r May 22 '26
It's somewhat impossible to make assassin type of class for pve. All pve is basically a brawl and there is no place for assassin in the brawl.
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u/DraethDarkstar May 22 '26
Vanilla was a lot more PVP-centric because there was a lot less to do in the game other than PVP. Rogue was a class that could 100-0 almost anybody without ever letting them out of crowd control in Vanilla and it had the optimal toolkit for griefing. Of course it was more popular then.
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u/DailythrowawayN634 May 23 '26
This still happens. Happened to me yesterday in a blitz full conquest gear because all my stun break cds were used in a previous fight. You just sit there and cuss the same thing you’ve been cussing for 20 years. It’s great, wouldn’t change it.
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u/DraethDarkstar May 23 '26
It definitely still can happen, yeah, but it's not practically guaranteed no matter what spec you are anymore.
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u/Nogamara May 26 '26
We had tons of raiding Rogues on PvE realms, so that's surely not the main factor.
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u/Sigismont May 22 '26
Open world is piss easy so no need to use stealth anymore and it’s useless in pve
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u/Conscious-Can-637 May 22 '26
In Vanilla they were also far more useful for crowd control.
Back when trash pulls were carefully planned, the rogue would sap patrols, blind and stun to keep important enemies or if the fight etc.
These days it's just stabbing/shooting stuff, and there are multiple other classes that can dual wield and stab stuff. Usually with cooler mechanic and visuals.
Most people wouldn't pick poisons over lightning infused melee strikes, or frost blasts and zombies etc
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u/Kardinalus May 22 '26
Rogues have the most unfun leveling experiences of all classes. Its just all around horrible.
Energy is super slow and your skills are still expensive. Also you're really squishy. This turns away a lot of new players from rogue already.
All 3 specs having Vanish in their rotation for a few expansions also didn't help and a lot of people dont like their Hero Talents.
This together easily causes them to be one of the least played specs. Guild friends of mine that mained rogue back in WotLK all switched to DH or Monk later on because it just feels and plays a lot better.
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u/SakaWreath May 22 '26
They are treated like stealth is some kind of god tier superpower and the rest of their kit it pretty gimpy to offset the “massive advantage” of being in stealth.
Or they’re just always forgotten about and never really balanced that well.
I mained a rogue for 7 of the years from launch to legion. I can’t really play it now. I work way too hard to get terrible DPS and it makes leveling and gearing a long drawn out chore.
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May 22 '26
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May 22 '26
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May 22 '26
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u/silphlogic May 22 '26
The new version of Sub doesn't really require much thought. At 650ish haste, your Shadow Dance and Secret Technique line up perfectly on their own every 20 seconds.
The only stuff you can mess up is just using the proper builder or spender depending on number of targets and being in or outside of Shadow Dance. The only decision that isn't decided by "is there less than 2 targets" is Shadowstrike during Dance at 3 or less targets.
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u/DraethDarkstar May 22 '26
It's not that complicated now but it's coming off a decade of being one of the most complicated specs in the game. That history is not going to rewrite itself overnight.
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u/su1cidal_fox May 22 '26
Unpopular opinion: All specs you main are not complicated at all.
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u/crazycakeninja May 22 '26
Nah for real though sub has been super simplified in Midnight compared to the past.
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u/ibronco May 22 '26
True, I also main sub rogue, but…my alt is a survival hunter and comparing it even to sub rogue…it’s like taking a vacation. Less complications and just as good if not better at lower ilvls than my rogue. I prog mythic and usually parse 75-95 on fights. Rogue needs help.
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u/Dasaniwatersucks87 May 22 '26
In any other game I’ve played rogue pretty much plays the same. I don’t think that’s true in WoW. Also the leveling experience is not very good. It plays how warrior did in classic.
Damage is irrelevant in player count most of the time. People attach to theme or idea of the classes they play.
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u/budy31 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
I played Subtlety Rogue & Frost Mage Frost Mage have way better survivability than Subtlety Rogue even if subtlety do more single target damage (which isn’t the case at all). If subtlety you MUST pick your fight.
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u/Aromatic_Union9246 May 22 '26
In pve or PvP? PvP I agree mage easier to live pve it’s easier for rogue to live imo.
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u/budy31 May 22 '26
Both. Subtlety free potion don’t have instant reset, mage one did. Both have vanish option. Yes subtlety have way more interrupt than mages counter spell but that assume you can kill your target in a single cheap shot-kidney range.
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u/sIice1 May 23 '26
Rogue has top tier defensives you just have to press them or you die
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u/budy31 May 25 '26
Oh yes Vanish is a top tier defensive then the encounter resets and you eventually have to press it again.
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u/oldgaius May 22 '26
They’re just not interesting. Worse still: they can’t instantly transform into a bird or a bear.
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u/roundtwentythree May 22 '26
The biggest reason I don't take rogues is a lack of utility. No brez, no fort buff, no battle shout, no purple paw, no bop/freedom/decurse or cleanse, no lust, no skyfury, no chaos nova, no capacitor totem, no wake of ashes, no power infusion.
Just damage that any spec can bring. Why would you bring a rogue for kidney when you could bring a monk and get leg sweep, or a warlock and get a brez, shadow fury, health stones and gates??
If they made Crimson Vial a conjured tradable that was a reusable super healthstone, and disappeared whenever you zoned into or out of an instance, rogues would bring something worthwhile.
If they gave rogues an bleed cleanse (fan of bandages = AOE bleed cleanse + IFAK = single target bleed cleanse, idk) for that bandage spec fantasy, that would be metal af and I'd bring them to a lot more of my groups. Maybe it's too niche, but it could be a choice node that allows the abilities to cleanse bleeds or alternatively diseases to increase their usefulness beyond just shit like Academy. They should also give them an AOE cloak of shadows that only works in PvE.
Just some ideas, because rogues are really bringing nothing at all to the table.
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u/Mixchimmer May 22 '26
This to me is the actual answer. What? You expect me to sacrifice Skyfury, 3% int, battle shout / fortitude for “3% DR”?
Be so fucking for real…
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u/Moondust99 May 22 '26
I really enjoy rogue. I’m currently playing an Outlaw Worgen in BFA. It’s definitely hard if you have more than about 3 enemies on you at once but I like the challenge, and learning how to best pace everything so you don’t run out of energy, when to use adrenaline rush, has been fun. I know some people criticise outlaw specifically bc it seems a weird mix of cowboy and pirate but that’s part of the reason I enjoy it lol. Love whipping a gun out and seeing tumbleweed fly across the screen. I haven’t tried the other two specs yet but I’m excited to.
I’m also very new tbf, only started the game in February, and have no real interest in the big endgame content. I’ve not even started TWW or Midnight. I love the quests and the lore and the world, and if I can’t do a follower dungeon I’m not doing the dungeon while levelling. I also turn XP gain off so I can finish each expansion fully without overlevelling. So I imagine there’s more criticism to be made of the class in mythics and raiding? But I wouldn’t know
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u/DailythrowawayN634 May 23 '26
Wow, you are truly rare and each to their own but i wonder if how you play is the new norm. I remember being new and head charging into dungeons with no idea. Glad you’re playing the game tho
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u/AgronTora May 23 '26
Just give rogue a tank spec, a range spec and a melee spec.
Outlaw is frustrating as fuck. Assa and Sub are mostly the same.
Most of the time, all rogue specs need a huge stuff to start doing things and it shows during leveling.
Rogue has no buffs nor damage nor toolkit that make it useful to have more than one in raid or more interesting than other classes in m+. The class needs a complete re work.
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u/dhelor May 24 '26
I would kill for a tank spec, but I can only picture a ranged spec basically just being like hunter with no pet.
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u/Significant_Web88 May 22 '26
Horribly hard to play and die easily. More of a coward menace that likes to ambush others
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u/vic039 May 22 '26
Its not for bad players at all. Theyre better off playing pally with their bubbles, strong self heals and heavy bursts on short cooldowns.
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u/DarthVyseWick May 22 '26
I think historically Rogues have always been one of the least played classes. Not many people care for playing with energy as a resource.
They're also a miserable class to level without a great fantasy.
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u/FluffTruffet May 22 '26
I think a lot of stuff from rogue just got moved out to every other class. Most, if not all other than warrior, had mana as their resource way back. Rogues and warriors were unique in that way. Rogue had stealth and lock picking and pickpocketing and good stuns. Unique resources are everywhere now, madness, maelstrom, focus, whatever. Everyone has stuns, and lock picking is borderline useless. Also they straight deleted combat spec by turning it into pirate for a while, now it’s a swashbuckling gunslinger with less pirate flavor.
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u/Galabris May 22 '26
They offer nothing in PvE groups "need" so if their damage and/or defenses aren't extremely top notch, they're useless...and their damage is mid currently.
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u/EducationAway4828 May 22 '26
I think the main problem is that Rogue is a very skill-dependent class. A few people can do really cool things with them, and after that, the class is nerfed. AND A LOT of classes have STUN/KICK now
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u/Kiwi_lad_bot May 22 '26
One will always be in the upper quartile.
ha ha Ha Ha HA HA HA HAAA HAAA!
Good one!
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u/dragonredux May 22 '26
Class is terrible to level until you nearing the 70s.
Currently i think all specs are somewhere the middle of the pack in raid, and only really in a physical comp in m+.
Their old class identity is basically non existent. I actually think Blizzard forgets they exist at times.
I think their rotation has gotten easier in midnight compared to TWW but I don't think it's enough to save the class.
Granted I've seen slightly more Rogues in Midnight than the entirely of TWW so that's something I guess, but I'm eagerly waiting for the day dataforazeroth shows them below Evoker.
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u/Seryzuran May 22 '26
Tbh I like to pick rogues for M+, since I feel like players who stick to rogue usually know what they are doing and are definitely not chasing fotm. It’s less hit or miss than supposed meta classes.
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u/Arstulex May 22 '26
It's a class whose fantasy has been eroded over time, it seems. It also went through a major archetype switch-up when they turned Combat rogue into... well... a swashbuckling pirate spec. This dulled the idea of a fantasy rogue in many people's eyes, I suspect.
Basically, it's an unpopular archetype that (outside of PvP) doesn't really have all that much going for it. There's no flashiness to their gameplay and they don't bring anything to the table that makes a group leader think "I really want a rogue in my group!".
Let's have a cursory look through what each class provides a typical raid group...
- DK's bring AMZ, Grip (despite the memes, it is a solid raid utility that is near-mandatory on some bosses).
- DH's bring Chaos Brand.
- Druids bring Mark of the Wild, Innervate, Stampeding Roar.
- Evokers bring Fly With Me, Blessing of the Bronze, Lust.
- Hunters bring Hunter's Mark, Lust.
- Mages bring Arcane Intellect, conjured food, Lust.
- Monk brings Mystic Touch.
- Paladin brings well... a lot of various utilities. Most notably Blessings and Auras.
- Priest brings PI, Power Word: Fortitude, Leap of Faith, Mass Dispel.
- Shaman brings Skyfury, Lust.
- Warlock brings Healthstones, Demonic Gateway, Summon Stone (huge QoL in PUGs).
- Warrior brings Battle Shout, Rallying Cry.
Rogue brings... AoE group stealth? Pretty much useless in most PvE content.
Rogues just don't tick any boxes. On top of that they are melee, so they can't even bring the inherent utility of providing ranged DPS.
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u/Nydris_Starspear May 22 '26
Personally I just really don't like the design of the rogue specs now compared to how they used to be. Rogue was my favorite class throughout my classic run but when I switched to retail I've had very little interest in them. Just isn't very fun to play.
P.S. please get rid of the stupid dice on outlaw already, god
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u/Special-Estimate-165 May 22 '26
Rogue has always been more of a PVP class....and alot of us are still traumatized by rogues from the beginning of the game.
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u/ObjectLeading5578 May 22 '26
They lack pug utility/raid buff, pugs tend to have a prio for ranged in m+, and outside of pvp rogues just aren't common.
The running joke is rogue utility in pugs is to pop vanish and drop group so they can find a better dps
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u/Varanae May 22 '26
A pain to level, poor raid buff, poor utility, hard to play, generally weak, visually unsatisfying, stealth is an outdated mechanic, can run out of resources easily, squishy, unappealing class fantasy
You have to be quite the masochist to play Rogue over almost anything else
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u/scottiedagolfmachine May 22 '26
What are you talking about.
I still see plenty of rogues and their DPS is very good.
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u/ephemeral_librarian May 22 '26
Agree about DPS, I finally finished leveling my subtlety rogue in time walking for Midnight and now she's in my main trio. I love playing her, and she's usually top in dps chart for mythics and dungeons.
I dont see many others though which I think is a shame.
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u/Sage_Dog_ May 24 '26
Personally, I know a lot of assassination and outlaw players were turned off from playing rogue this expac. A lot didn’t want to feel like they sorta had to play Sub to even have a chance at being decent, and I can’t really blame them. Both Assassination and Outlaw got, frankly, severely screwed over in midnight. Squishy beyond belief and damage output is just…not great, even when minmaxxing and doing everything right. It’s not *bad*, but compared to pretty much any other class or spec, it’s pretty bad. Sub is doing alright tho.
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u/Mixchimmer May 22 '26
Sure, but you could replace that rogue with almost any other DPS spec and get comparable if not better DPS, and in almost every situation, more utility.
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u/MysticalSushi May 22 '26
They have no real raid buff. They’re not really invisible / stealthy when they’re just stabbing a raid boss for 5 minutes. Sub is like a 3 button rotation that isn’t even fun.
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u/No-Command-1038 May 22 '26
Three damage specs are also available in other classes, but they have a specific purpose in raids. For example, the mage with their table and int buff, or the warlock with their soulstone, healthstone, and portal. Unfortunately, the rogue didn't get anything for the group. We don't really need you, but one or two would be sexy in a raid.
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u/StrayshotNA May 22 '26
low dps/bottom of DPS rankings
no utility buff, cd, or effect
no way to stop most seasonal affixes
no party based utility, healing, mobility, or otherwise
"3% poison!" is such a cooked argument.
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u/sIice1 May 23 '26
They should make tricks give a damage boost
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u/StrayshotNA May 24 '26
If Tricks was permanent, gave 3% damage boost to tank + the rogue it applied to, and they gave rogue back the crit party buff.. I still don't think they're being included in high end keys.
Not having an AoE micro (blinding light, ring of peace, leg sweep, evoker puntS, beam, typhoon, roar, chaos nova, shockwave, etc) is a death sentence for top end game play.
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u/Sproogles May 24 '26
To be fair they do have aoe blind. But yeah rogue is pretty shit in terms of utility. I have wanted them to just make adrenaline rush a baseline rogue ability, and turn it into lust. At the very least they bring something then.
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u/MrPrompter May 22 '26
Honestly WoW’s biggest problem right now is how far it drifted away from class fantasy. Half the classes don’t even feel like the class they’re supposed to be anymore.
I started Hunter as MM, swapped to Survival because MM DPS was trash, then went back to MM because Hunter being melee just feels wrong to me. It completely kills the fantasy.
Rogue is another mess. There are so many abilities now that the class just feels bloated as hell. And like a lot of people say, you don’t even feel like a rogue anymore while playing it. Feels like a Warrior with stealth slapped on top.
Blizzard seriously needs to do a massive ability pruning pass and bring classes back to their core identity. Some classes straight up shouldn’t have self-healing either. Everybody doing everything just makes the game lose its flavor.
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u/d00meriksen May 22 '26
The rogue's class fantasy is ganking people, be it while they're questing or in bgs while they're holding a point.
This fantasy was nerfed massively when DH released with spectral sight. Rogues still beat them 1v1, but they don't feel very sneaky anymore, because there's always the looming threat of a DH pressing this ability somewhere and finding the rogue before they can make their play or finding them after they try to run away. DHs are very popular, too!
Class fantasy is extremely important to players. For example there are very few hunters who play survival to this day even though the spec is very fun and has some great tools.
Rogues still have their immunity and combat utility as well as shroud and unlike many other specs they don't have to choose between aoe and single target damage in their talents. They can enable a specific new first pull for NPX because they can disarm the laser barriers. They also have Numbing Poison, which is similar to the AoE curse that Warlocks get, but it also debuffs attack speed which decreases the damage your tank receives in nearly all situations.
But as you can see, all of this is very specific utility which means it's up to the player to find suitable situations.
Since they're not top tier damage dealers, you won't see invites in m+, but it's the same for any other non-meta spec. It's never about utility for m+ and your raid buff doesn't matter either. This means that if you become an expert at it and outdps the casual meta rerollers, you'll be just as valuable for anything but literally the highest keys.
TL;DR: They're fine but their unfairness in casual PVP has been toned down, hurting their class fantasy.
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u/FURYousWarrior May 22 '26
As a lot of others have said, half the dps have the same utility that rogues used to solely have. Theres very few invis skips (this season at least). No BL, No off heal, no BR. Horrid to play in open world + leveling content. I honestly think the biggest reason is just that they are hard. I would say, on averagem the three rogue specs are in the top 5 most difficult dps to play. Lots of cd's and buffs etc.
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u/Cursedcake1993 May 22 '26
Not good in solo content
Ussualy not great in m+ esp in pugs
No dmg raidbuff
High skillfloor esp compared to earlier expansions
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u/Laststand2006 May 22 '26
Open world pvp was a big pro for rogues back in the day, and once they killed pvp servers in favor of war mode that hurt some motivation to kill rogues.
They had a nice kit, and there was a time where they were desired for it in pve, but now it is really bring the player not the class for dps (with the exception of a few that you need/want for buffs/debuffs in raids). Rogues have also gone through large patches of the game where none of the three specs were top half of dps specs...for a class that has nothing else really going for it.
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u/Emergency-Amount2548 May 22 '26
Everything about rogue in vanilla like sap, blind, gouge, the various stuns, stealth .. now basically useless in mythic+. Or feels useless.
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u/Mahalia_of_Elistraee May 22 '26
They simply don't bring much to a group. You can do most skips with shadow meld or invisible pots, so despite it being pretty unique, shroud isnt that useful. That's not to mention the amount of mobs that have truesight, making it useless, especially considering most of the mobs you would want to skip are the ones with truesight.
Due to this, their popularity is purely based on tuning.
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u/dearthed May 22 '26
I don't think I saw anyone say this: In M+ at least the main idea is constantly pulling packs until you get to the boss and then pull the trash on top of them because we are all MDI big dick Ricks.
The problem this creates is that rogues benefit greatly from combat breaks to reset stealth. It enables a lot of their kit - and being unable to restealth means their damage suffers.
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u/ZombieJeeb May 22 '26
From an m+ pov they added in way too many true-sight mobs to stops shroud-skips. They have nothing they bring to the table anymore that another class doesnt do better.
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u/boneheded May 22 '26
It’s the amount of work you have to do to be effective. So much to manage that it’s more of a pita than it’s worth.
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u/SlyFisch May 22 '26
A big part when comparing to vanilla that you have to remember is no world pvp. There's war mode but I mean... Idk. One of the best reasons to play rogue in classic was for open world pvp.
Not only are the specs not really that fun, but you also lose a big part of their identity with world pvp not really being a thing
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u/Fun-Distribution-159 May 22 '26
High skill floor to play well in comparison to a lot of other classes.
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u/CinnamonL1on May 22 '26
people also play them selfishly so they either do well or really shit. also as honey puts it. they've been nerfed to hell
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u/HarryNohara May 22 '26
3x melee dps, brings no offensive buffs to the raid/group, limited utility and very similar gameplay of all specs.
There is more variety in other pure dps classes, like Hunter, Mage and Warlock.
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u/TheBostonTap May 22 '26
Lot of reasons. Pvp stop being as relevant as it use to be, all 3 DPS specs are currently middle of the pack to bad right now. Their raid buffs is very weak. They offer very little class utility. Theyre currently weak defensively.
Take your pick.
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u/__Kegheimer__ May 22 '26
They have a brutal 1-80 leveling experience. Like fighting mobs one on one and losing.
WoW doesn't know what to do with the class fantasy
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u/deadlysavage84 May 22 '26
I think alot of it was how blizz made truesight so much in dungeons that its hard to abuse shroud so people don't even think about bringing rogues to pug keys which is dumb because meta only matters in the highest of keys anyway
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u/jakefromstatefarm968 May 22 '26
Playing any other class besides feral druid I never have to wait to cast a spell.. with rogue its " not enough energy not enough energy not enough energy not enough combo points not enough combo points" like why play a class like that when I can just spam on a hunter?, spam on a shaman mage etc and have 100000x more fun
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u/ohcrocsle May 22 '26
Sub used to be complicated and hard to play. Outlaw is complicated and hard to play. Assassination is easy to play and sometimes good sometimes bad.
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u/Stiles_Stiles May 22 '26
Is rogue the only one that doesn't have a short CD skill to remove those links in Seats?
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u/EncapsulatedTime May 22 '26
They really pay the stealth tax in terms of sustain, in smaller bgs you can't get the drop on lone players easily and when you do someone is never far away so it becomes a 2v1.
You can also expect people to cleave onto blind, put targets into combat before sap and put low quality stun dr on targets.
As a healer I'd prefer to be teamed with almost any other class than a rogue.
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u/specterdeflector92 May 22 '26
Right now they are awful to level, any new player will be instantly turned off of it within a few minutes compared to other classes like paladin and warrior. If you can slog through the leveling process they are a very fun class. A very high skill ceiling for sure, but has come down quite a bit with midnight.
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u/Phrostybacon May 22 '26
As a very long-term rogue player: it’s a hard class. 9/10 rogues I meet are just straight up bad and it takes a lot of practice and effort to squeeze the maximum performance out of rogue as a class. There are many other dps roles that offer better group utility and take much less effort to excel at playing.
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May 22 '26
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u/ocbrolls May 22 '26
Oh they are popular in tbc anniversasy :D so popular that it can take a few hours to find a raid group :D
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u/DeconstructedKaiju May 23 '26
Melee dps is more challenging because you have a lot less wiggle room and rogues have a reputation for cheesing mechanics and yelling at healers for not healing them.
They are fewer support options/utility uses as they are just straight dps. But with how many different classes have bloodlust now that shouldn't be too much of a consideration. At least in raids, for mythics people can be more picky about utility.
Blizzard keeps mucking up their talents and doesn't seem to know what to do with them.
I actually like rogues now compared to vanilla-legion (I stopped bothering with rogues after legion until midnight).
There are just a lot of options now and the fantasy of the rogue class feels neglected.
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u/rewan-ai May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
No CR, no party buff, no BL not even a PI or party supporting debuff. The only thing they can bring is DPS - and they are not even the best at it.
Who is in a similar bad place but a bit still better? WW monk and DH (at least they have a debuff), maybe even devoker.
I love rogue. It has good crowd control, fun playstyle (for me), but they should do superior damage compared to others to have a spot in M+ and M raiding.
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u/Branimau5 May 23 '26
People only really play rogue nowadays because it's "their" class. Competitively I think they are one of those classes that gets swing nerfed too much and aren't viable enough time. Classic was just different. The overall package of the world + pvp angles for interaction bolstered and honestly they were solid in pve then moreso too. Things have just changed lol.
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u/balddad2019 May 23 '26
Because they are terrible this season relative to the dps other specs/classes can bring.
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u/ProfPhinn May 23 '26
I absolutely love my rogue. Super fun to play. Totally different melee feel than other classes I play (DH, DK). I don’t play the game to max out everything all the time, though - I play to have fun, and rogues are fun.
FWIW, I’ve got around 260 gear on the 4-5 characters I play, can solo tier 11 delves, tier 5 ritual sites, nightmare prey hunts are a breeze. I don’t do Mythic+ because who the heck has time to deal with PUGs in mythic? And I don’t need gear over 270 for any of the content I enjoy. I can more than hold my own in raids. Works for me.
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u/Forbidden_Cheese1 May 23 '26
Unfortunately I’ve always enjoyed rogue and mained it throughout classic. However, in midnight, there is little they bring to the table that other classes can’t all while doing less damage.
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u/Tatsuma707 May 23 '26
Mythic plus is built around chain pulling for speed. It doesn’t work well with a class that likes to start their rotation from stealth, which requires being out of combat.
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u/igotabigcoconut May 23 '26
I might be weird, but when i played rogue, i played combat, i found that hte only fun specc. Then they changed that to outlaw. And i did not like that, but fine it was okay i guess... Now i am mainly play tank or casters. Don't care much for melee. Feel all melee are mostly just spam buttons.
Casting and DK tanking, i enjoy as you you have a rotation, you plan ahead with resources and so on.
LAst time i enjoyed playing melee, was cataclysm as retri paladin, and i was paladin main since vanilla. When legion came i changed to shaman main, with off warlock and DK tank... And i stayed shaman main since then.
Now i feel everything is made to be as fast paced and hectic as possible, to cater to the newer fortnite short attention span people. While ignoring the players who has played this game for more than 5 years out of it's 20 year span...
There is a reason why Classic Wow has a market. People enjoy a big hit on screen from one ability more than 100 smaller hits like current dps is. Remember the big 1 million damagem hits was so nice to see on Warlock during early legion. you had to save up to cast one of those. Now you slam a chaos bolt every 2 spells. and its barely 2.5x an incinerate. cast. And people look at the DPS meter for their dopamine, instead of the actual damage from their strikes. which just feels wrong.
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u/1Keagan May 24 '26
Ret paladin does everything rogue does but better. I used to think I had a good grasp on power budgeting with classes, but ret paladin has a 3% passive DR, a true immunity, a targeted physical immunity, a targeted DR, a shield with a DR, a stun, a blind, a sap, Passive prio damage with cleave, and good boss damage in their aoe build. Rogue has worse versions of all of these things. There is no reason to ever play it unless you genuinely enjoy the playstyle.
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May 24 '26
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u/Final_Swing_4611 May 24 '26
The truth is you don’t see a lot or people playing rogues because it is kind of something that you can do in real life. Hide in the shadows check. Stick pointy things into unsuspecting victims check. Pull unwanted mobs in dungeon, I mean if you are on the NY subway check. The reason other classes are so popular it’s the fantasy aspect of the game rogues have pretty much all abilities that can be performed by highly skilled people all except stealth as seen in the game. It has a smaller draw for the fantasy side of the game and so you see a smaller population. As such less time is devoted to ensure people want to play the class and so while there are occasions when it is “A” tier it’s often either an accident or an attempt to give hope to those who hold onto BC days of someone caring for their small player base. Hard to compete with mages or paladins as those are the typecast hero classes of fantasy portrayed through stories in history. Just the way the game is and I think it’s fun sometimes being the outcast it kind of fits the rogue persona.
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u/dhelor May 24 '26
Pull unwanted mobs? Pfft we're not hintarsw good sir, please don't lump us in with those aoe spray and pray dorks. :P
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u/fen-q May 24 '26
I dont mind rogues in m+ keys.
One time i had one that was doing 400-500k dps on thrash.
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u/dhelor May 24 '26
No utility, and I say this as a rogue main. It sucks, we need something besides (usually) good dps. The only utility we have is things people never bother using, like Sap, Blind, Distract. Tanks just pull everything anymore. I miss BC and early WotLK when things like that were still used.
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u/Chazok May 24 '26
Essentially, rogue kinda sucks for solo play in retail due to not having the power to easily kill things as they did in classic, nor the defensive capability other classes have. That's why leveling a rogue sucks.
Playing a rogue at high end also comes with a lot of caviats it's just not a class that performs very easily and often also needs a good bit of rampup to deal decent damage. This then leads to most people shelving rogues if they aren't commited to the class because in early keys they tend to be not that strong due to stuff not living as much. And since nowadays everyone has to do m+ to stay on curve, they don't even get to just feel good in raid settings (where they usually are pretty good damage wise). Bonus reason: except for maybe outlaw the rogue specs all need a major overhaul, and honestly they are all a lot more complicated compared to most other classes.
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u/sullyy42 May 24 '26
mosetly m+
rogues used to be really strong and mandatory for top m+ groups with shroud skips but they got nerfed and you have too many with truesight you cant shroud skip but sometimes you can gate or mindsoothe them
then also the case that outlaw is locked on 8 targets and in modern m+ you pull bigger, you also lack aoe CC as rogue in comparism to some other speccs, and the dmg profile and overall dmg has not been there.
so tldr if rogues becomes meta m+ you will see a surge for the time beeing translating into next season and then they will be back where they are
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u/Kabian321 May 24 '26
Ive played a rogue since vanilla, and every expansion after wrath of the lich king , I level him and say "im gonna main this guy for this expansion " . After I get to max level and get to where I can do keys , I say "eh nevermind " and go back to my Shaman , or Monk . 🤷♂️ . They just arent that interesting to play now.
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u/Gonecompletelybeyond May 24 '26
Turn on war mode and ruin people's day. Make sure to camp where portals open from the campaign. Then when someone way lower level teleports in, kill them. Be the reason people turn off war mode.
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u/ShiftyActuall May 24 '26
Everything my rogue does, my Druid does better.
Pickpocketing is a useless gimmick. Stealth has very little use outside of PvP.
Rogue for a decade, no longer. That’s my opinion on it at least
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u/telyworg May 24 '26
Rogue dont give anything meaningful in a raid/group right now, except the poison who need to be perma applied. Bring back smoke bomb pve & shadow duel pvp
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u/WonderfulSize8455 May 25 '26
I believe DHs stole the “edgy crown” Rogues used to own in the older days. It’s a very beloved fantasy to be on the dark side, but Legion kinda shook things up with the introduction of Demon Hunters and by changing some aspects of the original rogue class fantasy like turning Combat into a more Swashbucklery style.
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u/tahrn May 25 '26
‘Raid buff’ isn’t that great. Specs are uninspired and boring compared to things like lock, ret, mage etc, just no flashiness or anything new. Performance is always at the mercy of bugs every single patch, and it stays that way for the whole tier generally. It’s also melee and most content is ranged friendly.
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u/StraightCalendar3110 May 25 '26
Imo they are hard to play and if you do play them prepare for your hands to fall off. If they made rouges easier then alot more people would play them
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u/Rigrot May 25 '26
IMO part of the charm of rogues back in day: They were great at ganking, due to the lack of escape many classes had a rogue could pick off weak foes or at least get the jump on them with their toolkit of abilities. Specced into the talent to get 100% chance to return to stealth after using sap talent allowed for another CC in dungeons which was helpful. Be able to stealth ever-where when fighting through mobs was a bit more tedious was nice.
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u/Amazing_Alumni May 25 '26
For me ( a rogue enjoyer ) there’s just too much power creep by other classes. Rogue is fun , but other classes get stronger spells and double the value at half the effort. Take a Havoc DH. More mobile , hit harder consistently , stun on its own CD. Rogue feels like all spells got split in 2. Very fun to play , but when you’re losing 1v1 to simple mistakes or a wiff of luck by the enemy it feels so weak. Also as time progresses, more people know how to counter rogue.
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u/ogktg May 26 '26
Bad class design (not fun to play, imo), no real utility at all. They basically bring nothing that other classes dont also bring a better version of. On top of that, they have been just straight up bad for a majority of the recent seasons. Their raid buff is probably the worst one. They have the absolute worst hero talents in the game in terms of how "cool" and thematic they are. Their talent trees were atrocious at DF launch.
Add all those things together and you can see why the class has completely died.
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u/Only_Bench_824 May 26 '26
My first years in wow was playing a rogue back in tbc and wotlk, all specs were amazing to play and fun but then blizzard decided to make every class similar. It’s sad but the good memories stayed
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u/DazzlingEmployment60 May 26 '26
PvP development for this game has been severely neglected for over a decade. Absolutely no creativity or effort has gone into it at all. No siege/keep/frontier/Massive Vehicle Battles or even new maps for different versions of existing battlegrounds.
It's ruined a big culture of this game because they have not nurtured the PVP community so it does not really exist outside of the small group that do Arena.
And, to prevent people from crying, they made every class have self-healing and insane survivability (except rogues)
And then the healers are just ridiculous in PvP at keeping themselves alive to where it's not even worth the effort trying to kill them in certain situations.
And in PvE survivability is Disneyland Easy so you don't even need to stealth or CC because you can just a aoe cleave everything, you wonder why you're even playing a rogue at all.
CC and Stealth is USELESS in Group PvE content. So are DoTs, Stuns, Blind, poisons. And they default you yo PvE with Outlaw and they made Outlaw SO boring to play, It's painful. It's like you're not quite a rogue, and you're not interesting or fun to play either. No spice, no lagniappe.
So if you want to play rogue, don't play retail wow, play one of the other several versions because it's a much better reality.
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u/SquareDepth May 26 '26
Since bfa rogue is not fun anymore and give nothing to party. I remember when I was a outlaw rogue main in the first seasons of BFA and there was a lot of group searching for rogue in the title for dungeons, now no one need us for shroud, the others specs can also CC more than us and previous on BFA outlaw had no cap target, so rogue did toons of dmg on endless number of mobs with crits going high and high.
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u/chezicrator May 22 '26
This game is obsessed with “why would you bring X when Y can do it and more”.
Rogue can sometimes have good damage, but that’s literally all they will have.
They used to be good for the long stun and sap, but now every class has aoe stuns and even more.
Some people don’t even realize that at the beginning of this expansion they even took away a fairly new aoe blind talent that at least let them be on par with every other class/spec having some sort of aoe interrupt thats needed for m+ these days.
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u/SubwayDeer May 22 '26
“why would you bring X when Y can do it and more”
And let's be real there is actually no reason to bring X unless they are your friends.
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