I see the rogue raid buff as being an inclusive type of addition to the game. It encourages a bit more diversity in raid comp, which I personally see as a plus overall. I realize that it can also create a situation where it can be "exploited" or in some ways EXCLUDE others from some group/raid metas, however, this happens already! The return of the druid mark of the wild I see as part of this trend back toward some classic/bc game structure. The diverse talent trees is part of that, which I truly missed tbh. When I started in BC, the talent tree hybrid possibilities pushed me toward reading and learning about what the talents meant, what their interactions with other talents could mean. It created more immersion in my character (or so it seemed at the time). I hope we don't lose these trees due to people being in a rush, and unwilling to spend the time to figure them out. Like how we lost reforging due to its "complexity"
I'm just not a fan of raid buffs in general being limited to 1 class.Some comments in this discussion thread saying they're good because if the x mandatory raid buff slots weren't filled you'd just stack 8 hunters etc, but that's a completely asinine argument. No real raid guild has the luxury of just stacking whatever they want, you use what players you have available and what they're comfortable / good at playing. Even high end guilds are unlikely to be in a position where they can put all of their eggs in one meta-basket by playing what's best and having zero insulation against a nerf to said over-performing spec. Most guilds are struggling just to keep a roster of decent players together.Most raiding guilds, even top 100ish ones will have a varied roster, regardless of raid buffs being there or not. I'd hope we weren't balancing the game around the top 1% that can afford to have their roster re-roll at a whim to abuse the extra % they'd gain.Missing out on something like CB is just dreadful, there are situations like Mythic Denathrius where a glaive throw is literally 5% of a mobs health because the target is being hit by casters only. That's too big of a swing to have on one class imo, after having to kill Mythic Sylvanas without a mage buff and other tiers where we've had unreliable attendance from things providing CB / BS, we now feel obliged to try and have 2 of every raid buff more or less.For all the comments claiming it was the thing avoiding marginalizing underperforming classes by making sure these classes got a raid spot, imagine how bad it is for the "second" buff provider on a roster if the only thing keeping your class in the raid team is a % damage buff that someone else is providing, or the people who struggle to find a spot on a roster because who needs a priest for PWF when there's no doubt a healing priest on the roster and that's your main selling point.Raid buffs shouldn't be an argument for shoddy balancing, nor should the extents top 1% guilds could hypothetically take if they weren't forced into taking mandatory raid spot roles due to arbitrary buffs.If anything they should spread the buffs over 2 or so classes, I'd rather rogues also brought a BS equivalent and something else was capable of bringing arcane int etc than spreading more unique buffs around that just warp composition and risk warping class performance with their inclusion. PI massively warps how good demonology is, how do you balance demo when it's either easily the best ST ranged spec if there are an equal numberof healing priests in the raid team, or decent but perfectly fine if there aren't?Likewise with Windfury, the presence of an enhance shaman currently makes some specs notably stronger than a roster without one.If there are mandatory raid buffs they should be provided by enough, varied classes that you're not jumping through hoops to get them.If they're novelty things like WF or PI then they shouldn't be so strong for other players that they warp their standings dramatically, though they should offer a disproportional personal benefit like how Shadow has been balanced to always prefer giving itself PI.
As a rogue player I don't think the outlaw talent will make it live as is, looks far too strong, but idk who knows
Last part to respond:
As a long time CE player and raid leader who happens to play Rogue, im very happy that they're trying to give raid utility to the class. I do however see a couple of issues with the way they decided to implement it:1: - They oddly decided to give the utility on the spec tree rather than the generic Rogue tree (which means basically that while Assa brings new DR poison and Outlaw brings party CDR, Sub doesnt have either, and will basically never see play even if numerically superior to the other 2 specs).2: - Especially with Outlaw, i was hoping for perhaps a weaker buff, but one that applies to the whole raid. Numerically, if this works like the tooltip states, is an absolutely HUGE buff for those 4 players you put in group with the Rogue, enough to put Power Infusion absolutely to shame (roughly we look at 100 sec of CDR roughly in a 6 minute fight). You apply those numbers to retail fire mages, and they basically get 2-3 more combustions in any encounter, for example. This will obviously lead to more PI-like issues in the raid of people fighting to be in the group with the Rogue, and the Rogue himself will never be a top parser since it's basically buffing everyone but himself enormously. This is as close as we ever got to a "buffer" or "bard" type of gameplay in my opinion.To conclude, i think it would be best to come up with only 1 raid utility (realistically the DR poison seems to be the more balanced one) and put that utility in the generic rogue tree, so we are not locked playing one spec only because the buff it brings is too large to be ignored.
Unfortunately we are headed towards a world where it becomes, "bring the raid buff, not the player."
Last thing I'll say:There are 35+ specs in the game. You cannot bring them all, it's mathematically impossible.If every 1 of them provided a unique raid buff/benefit, then it means that missing out on one is nowhere as impactful, because other guiilds/rosters will also be missing out on several raid buffs/benefits as well and with each spec providing a benefit, then players will be less impacted by it, as they will have their own unique buff to provide. If right now, only some classes provide buffs, like Monks and DH, then it is a much larger impact not having 1, because the specs they are replaced with, like a rogue or paladin, will have nowhere near the same benefit for the raid in Shadowlands. If Dragonflight changed that so all specs provide something, then that would be beneficial for all raid rosters because you cannot gain all the buffs anyway; it's just mitigating the impact from not having a monk or DH.Therefore, it is a choice between different classes/specs on what to provide to a raid.
I'd love to see 30+ raid buffs. 99% of raids just bring whoever is available to raid. Sometimes that means you have 4 outlaw rogues doing Heroic Raiding because those are the guildies that show up. Don't balance raids around World First. If they want to minmax, let them. We've beat every heroic raid without planning any of the classes/specs ahead of time. People just show up, learn the mechanics, gear up and beat the raid. More party utility, not less. Mythic Raiders will level and gear out 3 classes a person just for optimization. Let them figure out the best combination of buffs, they like doing that stuff. It's certainly more interesting to say "If we stack this with this and this, it might be better than doing this and this" as opposed to "We have to bring these classes, it's mandatory." Every class, maybe every spec even, should bring something unique and different to the group.