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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPTR Notes: Rogue's Blind change changed back
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 16th 2007 at 4:44PM
From the "some-of-the-people-happy-all-of-the-time file," you may have noticed a fun little change under the Rogue notes in patch 2.2: "Blind duration reduced to 8 seconds, cooldown reduced to 1 minute, Blinding Powder is no longer required to use." Blind with only a minute cooldown? With no reagent cost? Sounds good to my PvP Undead Rogue.But most people didn't like the sound of spending all that time disoriented, so this weekend, the forums opened up with the QQ rain. Even some Rogues agreed that they didn't use Blind that often, and that the reagent costs didn't bother them that much (I know I always have tons of it from pickpocketing-- it's the Flash Powder that I never have enough of). And yet when Neth announced that the change that was in the patch notes hadn't actually been implemented on the PTR (here are the new official patch notes, sans Blind changes), the whole situation flipped-- Rogues decided that they did want the Blind change, and other classes cheered that a change they weren't sure would affect them negatively had ever existed in the first place.
Should Blind be changed? I tend to agree with most people's opinions-- it works right now, so why bother with it? But all the outrage and the flip-flopping on the PTR (a place that is supposed to be full of experimentation) just brings up the point I made on the last PTR: have a little patience, people. The PTRs are a place to test ideas on a massive scale, and since this change never actually appeared on the PTRs, all the commentary on it actually came from people who'd never actually played with it in the first place.
Filed under: Rogue, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
seti Jul 17th 2007 1:37AM
i get why it sucks to have a buff renegged on, but i've played rogue in abundance and speccing to reduce the blind cooldown felt overpowered enough as it was, a 1 minute blind cooldown would be so incredibly frequent i wouldn't know what to do with it
everywhere you go people will say things like "my class is nerfed, pvp videos are proof" well if you find a video filmed by the class beating your class, of course your class loses. secondly rogues have had a cakewalk most of their wow existence so now that the class isn't and easy win in pvp everyone screams "buff me". thirdly, i have a friend who quit playing wow with the main reasoning being his warrior couldn't win 1v3's, it's easier for people to get geared up now, raiding is no longer the only option so just because you could do well in the past against peopel who couldn't gear up doesn't mean you deserve to beat those same people who pvp to gear up nowadays
Rizel Jul 17th 2007 1:53AM
Blind can be dispelled by abilities to remove poisons, it can be removed by trinkets it can be removed if you're hit... people can be immune or it fails.
What are people complaining anyways... rogues are usually the first to be targeted/killed in arena/battlegrounds.
Kryptonls Jul 17th 2007 5:46AM
Speaking of locls... nerf fear and polymorph for PvP - thats the first thing they slap on you as you come into range.
And DPS warriors are the ones ahead of rogues - they hit us for 2k - we hit them for 400. I'll let someone else do the maths. ^_^
Dipstick Jul 17th 2007 6:22AM
I would have hated the change, particularly as rogue poisons (including blind) can be made 'sticky', making them a complete pain to dispel in an arena situation.
It looked like a quick fix to make rogues more useful in arena, but IMO they are already too good against caster classes, with their kicks, gladiator glove deadly throw of win, stuns, wound poison and blinds. I'm a paladin, I hate rogues when I'm trying to heal my team - not because they are much of a threat to me personally, just that they make my job a pain in the arse.
Morthagrid Jul 17th 2007 7:31AM
Seems to me that keeping the reagent is a good thing. Take a moment to actually think about the physical mechanics of blinding for a non casting class. What really do you need in order to blind someone? That's right you need to hit them in the eyes with something that'll make their eyes water. Ergo you need blinding powder. sounds to me like blizzard got it right first time.
macr Jul 17th 2007 7:46AM
Put blind on the same cooldown as Death Coil and get rid of the reagent cost which is abused on most servers. But really blizzard, look at the big picture and stop throwing candy bars at the rogues to try and prevent them from rerolling to a viable class in Arena PvP.
Wasyl Jul 17th 2007 8:05AM
@25 How about sand or dirt that is all over the ground?
Kaylek Jul 17th 2007 8:18AM
I like how it says "Rogue" at the top of the page and people still manage to comment with "rouge." l2spell ffs.
This was far too overpowered, and good rogues know it. You can already spec it down to 2 minutes, and that pretty much guarantees a blind in every one on one. This would just make it ridiculous, and I'd personally say such a change would only increase the necessity for a less than common reagent as a point of balance.
If the reagent is the only real complaint, leave the cooldown as is and sell blinding powder at poison vendors.
Levi Jul 17th 2007 8:51AM
The rogue complaining about bag space should roll a hunter or warlock...
Morthagrid Jul 17th 2007 9:34AM
@27 yeah im easy whatever you need as a reagent. but unless you can cast arcane or shadow spells - blindneess needs to have a reason to occur, not just cos you want it that way. (rogue walks up to warrior and says you're blind now - and hey presto you suddenly get a spell casting rogue). I know WOW is a magical universe but there has to remain the laws of cause and effect even so. Maybe you could have rogues use sand but still need farming for reagents like for un goro dirt. But I suspect the cost of sand would still seem extortionate whichever reagent it used when bought on th AH. But the need for a consistant reagent exists.
Wasyl Jul 17th 2007 10:15AM
@30 I really don't understand your problem with removing the reagent. If you really need to have some kind of "lore" behind the use of blind, you can just assume rogues have little bags of sand that they throw in your eyes. There's really no reason for an actual reagent that has to reside in my bag and be farmed. This has nothing to do with the power of blind, it's simply a huge annoyance to have to farm something to use a core CC ability. All the other reagent-using abilities I can think of are very rarely used, have a non-reagent version as well (single buff vs party buff), or are not used in combat (so running out is less important). We already have to create poisons, cut us some slack. Even making the reagent purchasable at a vendor would be nice.
Morthagrid Jul 17th 2007 10:31AM
Running out of reagents during combat is part of your role. Ask mages if they like running out of mana during combat (even more core to their abilities than one small effect of bliind is to your overall armoury).
Also Rogues already have multiple effects that have the same overall result - incapacitation of their adversary. Because you dont get to use one as much as you'd like because it costs you is not a reason to remove the need for the reagent.
As a frost mage myself i dont like an 8 minute cooldown on Cold snap that resets my cooldowns on spells - or buying arcane powder to buff my fellow raiders for Intell, or the 15 second cooldown on the Blink that is my ONLY defense against rogues multiple CC's, or the non existant use of polymorph against any decent PVPer's with trinkets, or... i could go on and on but i have learnt to cope. Ok many of the things dont need reagents but the effects are limited and on long cooldowns for a reason. Again why should your one effect be any more in need of special attention or favours than my half a dozen gripes. I also run a priest - want me to explain their limitations against any class in PVP or reagent costs. Other classes abilities and skills fit in with the Lore, that's why we have lore. There has to be a grounding in reality, its a fantasy world but players would soon find other pursuits if fanciful ideas were let loose in azeroth without some natural grounding of ideas from the real world. Hooray to blizz for making at least one idea acceptable to real life human players.
Wasyl Jul 17th 2007 11:50AM
So because other classes have problems too, rogues should just deal with theirs? Since when is this all about making my class better than your class? The reagent has absolutely zero to do with balance.
I don't really understand your comment that "running out is part of [my] role." Do you often run out of candles on your priest, or arcane powder on your mage? If so, you just didn't bring enough, and that's your fault, not the game's. It's expected that you should have "enough" with you at all times. The reagent doesn't exist so you can run out, it exists to apply a small cost to those group buffs, for some game design reason that is a mystery to me. The untalented cooldown on blind is 3 minutes. I should never run out of a reagent for an ability that is on a 3-minute cooldown. Even if you want to bring lore into it, how could I possibly run out of sand or dirt to throw at an enemy? It is literally everywhere.
None of the other mage abilities you mentioned have any bearing here, as they don't have reagents, nor does mana compare to a reagent in any way, so I'm not sure what your point is there.
As for other rogue abilities, if you're talking about incapacitation (abilities that break on damage), there's only sap, blind, and gouge. If you want to bring stuns into it too, there's kidney shot and cheap shot. Blind is just as important as the rest of those, but you make it sound like we can just choose any of them whenever we please. Sorry, no.
The only comparison I can make that you'd understand is if one of your vital 3 minute cooldowns had an expensive reagent that you couldn't simply buy from a vendor. Presence of Mind maybe? Just imagine that, and that's where we're coming from.
Wrote more than I wanted to, but you really just aren't getting it.
Sevryn Jul 17th 2007 12:30PM
blizzard hates rogues. we haven't seen a blue response to a rogue problem in months, and now that rogues get an announced minor buff, some warlock hops on their rogue alt, says 'change us back,' and blizzard responds saying 'yah youre right how foolish of us'
thanks for nothing, blizzard.
phlipy Jul 19th 2007 2:39AM
Maybe the short CD was a little bit too strong concerning world-pvp. But anyone who complains about rogues being the dominating and overpowered class in arena-pvp is simply ignoring the statistic of arena-group-compositions of the top 20 teams in all battlegroups, which was a reason for a blue-post dealing with the rogue's problem in in high-level-arena pvp. Change or do not change Blind - the rogue remains a less desired - which is understandable! - class in arena-pvp.