Solution for lack of Rogue/Hunter AoE

[Neechy]

I am firmly against giving melee AoE abilities to rogues and hunters to respect vanilla design and class identity. And also to reduce homogenization and trivialization that came with later versions of the game. Rogue can already get blade fury, which is fine; and maybe hunters could get a similar kind of 2-target cleave further down in survival tree. But I absolutely hate the anti-vanilla feel of hunter's Carve (SoD ability), and would similarly hate rogues receiving Fan of Knives (wrath ability).

See:

I am all for returning them to their rightful place as S tier pvp and at least A tier single target dps. But for the love of god PLEASE DO NOT GIVE ROGUES AN AOE. Fan of knives is an abomination as is hunter Carve and any other AoE-ification garbage that cheapens the game and homogenizes class identities.
More details here why abilities like Carve should be removed: viewtopic.php?f=45&t=15877

My proposed solution would be to allow for AoE melee through special end game items.This is what made vanilla so special, was how unique items were that they could elevate gameplay in fun ways. For example, Ravager in SM allowed for AoE melee for classes that otherwise didn't have any.

Example: Lvl 60 Epic Fist Weapons with an AoE proc
-Drops off raid boss in T4.5 Barrow Deeps raid (e.g. The Largest Panda Ever)
-Right hand and left hand fist weapons with a 2-set bonus: "Your attacks have a chance to trigger Pandamonium, causing you to spin in a frenzy, hitting up to 5 targets in the area for 100% weapon damage".
-This triggered effect would work similar to fan of knives for rogues. Proc chance would be like 10%. It allows for solo melee farming and as well as some meme-level tanking by rogues and hunters. This approach overcomes the needs for rogues and hunters to have baseline melee AoE (bad) or making them baseline competitive tanks (bad).
-It ofc requires both weapons so is restricted to DW classes: warrior, rogue and hunter. This continues the theme of other cool fist weapon sets with procs that already exist in vanilla such as Arlok and Eskandar sets.
-Lastly, it doesn't have to come as late as T4.5, I just thought it would be good if it's both difficult to get and also doesn't become obsolete quickly

[Atreidon]

These classes are not meant to have good aoe. Arguing they need a aoe is like arguing every class needs a priest shield or the ability to self heal. They have good DPS capability and are in limited amounts able to deal AoE/Cleave damage. But they are not meant to excell at it. For classes to have distinguished strengths, that means other classes need to be weak at the same thing. If every class gets good AoE, why should i play mage?

Appart from this, there are weapons that deal AoE, so there is the possibility to add further AoE weapons. But nowhere near the powerlevel you propose. The ones below are examples of what powerlevel we look at in comparison.
The twohanders locking you out of doing anything for their procs duration and the one handers being rather tame. 500% weapon damage on a weapon that has endgame stats and no further restrictions? Sounds kinda retail to me

2H
Ravager
The Cruel Blade

1H
Masterwork Stormhammer
Dream's Herald

[Neechy]

These classes are not meant to have good aoe. Arguing they need a aoe is like arguing every class needs a priest shield or the ability to self heal. They have good DPS capability and are in limited amounts able to deal AoE/Cleave damage. But they are not meant to excell at it. For classes to have distinguished strengths, that means other classes need to be weak at the same thing. If every class gets good AoE, why should i play mage?

Appart from this, there are weapons that deal AoE, so there is the possibility to add further AoE weapons. But nowhere near the powerlevel you propose. The ones below are examples of what powerlevel we look at in comparison.
The twohanders locking you out of doing anything for their procs duration and the one handers being rather tame. 500% weapon damage on a weapon that has endgame stats and no further restrictions? Sounds kinda retail to me

2H
Ravager
The Cruel Blade

1H
Masterwork Stormhammer
Dream's Herald

Ok so nonetheless you agree with the philosophy that hunters and rogues should NOT have melee AoE baseline and it should only come from unique items. That's what my whole post is about. Glad we are on the same page.

As far as the % weapon damage from the proc, proc rate, etc. that can be adjusted as needed to ensure it is not game breaking. I'm as much against power creep as the next person.

Appreciate you for linking other item examples.

[Atreidon]

Absolutely agree that they dont need aoe, at least not more than they have with multishot, explosive trap / bladeflurry respectively.

Having unique weapons solve a class weakness is certainly the more appealing route to me, but any such item should be carefully considered and ensure they are not exactly metaweapons or hard to obtain. I wouldnt want a weapon that doubles their output on aoe packs just for getting one specific item compared to another item of the same itemlevel.

[Bigsmerf]

Rogue just needs to be the best ST DPS. There, I said it. Same goes for feral druids but to a lesser extent because of their hybrid nature and better utility. If you either A) Suck at something, or B) Literally can't do it whatsoever... You should be really really good at another thing to compensate. Right now rogues, by my knowledge, are great at single target damage which sounds cool, but we still have classes that just have better utility doing more or equal-ish damage compared to rogues. If your niche is damage, and only damage, in a raid, and you're not even close to the best at that, what's the point in playing what you're playing?

I feel bad for y'all, really. Thoughts and prayers my rogue friends.

Anyways hunters have multishot/volley and survival hunters have carve/explosive trap so they don't need help with aoe at all as far as I know. No, carve isn't getting removed. I don't think there's ever been a time in the six years of Twow where something got straight up deleted because some guy on the forums thought it wasn't "lore friendly" or "true to the class identity of being ONLY A RANGED CLASS AND NOTHING ELSE!!!! >:(" like we don't have WC3 to draw from for it's existence.

Also, funnily enough, carve is actually a retail ability, not SoD. They gave that to survival hunters when they were reworked into a melee spec in... I think legion? Perhaps the ability itself came at a later date but the point is it came before SoD existed. Just thought I'd mention that 'cause my brain tells me to do silly things.

[amanagor]

Rogue just needs to be the best ST DPS. There, I said it. Same goes for feral druids but to a lesser extent because of their hybrid nature and better utility. If you either A) Suck at something, or B) Literally can't do it whatsoever... You should be really really good at another thing to compensate. Right now rogues, by my knowledge, are great at single target damage which sounds cool, but we still have classes that just have better utility doing more or equal-ish damage compared to rogues. If your niche is damage, and only damage, in a raid, and you're not even close to the best at that, what's the point in playing what you're playing?

I feel bad for y'all, really. Thoughts and prayers my rogue friends.

Anyways hunters have multishot/volley and survival hunters have carve/explosive trap so they don't need help with aoe at all as far as I know. No, carve isn't getting removed. I don't think there's ever been a time in the six years of Twow where something got straight up deleted because some guy on the forums thought it wasn't "lore friendly" or "true to the class identity of being ONLY A RANGED CLASS AND NOTHING ELSE!!!! >:(" like we don't have WC3 to draw from for it's existence.

Also, funnily enough, carve is actually a retail ability, not SoD. They gave that to survival hunters when they were reworked into a melee spec in... I think legion? Perhaps the ability itself came at a later date but the point is it came before SoD existed. Just thought I'd mention that 'cause my brain tells me to do silly things.

You really are completly clueless at everything arent you. Rogues are not great at dps, they are below average as 5 classes are better than rogue at ST, and they are 450 dps below warriors.

[Atreidon]

He isnt talking about the current state of the game but what it SHOULD be.
A class like rogue who is single target only, hard focussed on one target due to punishing combopoint mechanic on switch and very limited utility appart from some stuns on a purely dps class with very limited range & survivability, should be the best dps when it comes to single target damage.

[amanagor]

He isnt talking about the current state of the game but what it SHOULD be.
A class like rogue who is single target only, hard focussed on one target due to punishing combopoint mechanic on switch and very limited utility appart from some stuns on a purely dps class with very limited range & survivability, should be the best dps when it comes to single target damage.

"Right now rogues, by my knowledge, are great at single target damage"

[Bigsmerf]

He isnt talking about the current state of the game but what it SHOULD be.
A class like rogue who is single target only, hard focussed on one target due to punishing combopoint mechanic on switch and very limited utility appart from some stuns on a purely dps class with very limited range & survivability, should be the best dps when it comes to single target damage.

"Right now rogues, by my knowledge, are great at single target damage"

So my knowledge was wrong. And... Doesn't that kinda prove my point? That rogues need even -more- in terms of buffing their single target capabilities?

[Atreidon]

No buffing - classes are very over the top right now as is, but nerf the others ;)

[Neechy]

Also, funnily enough, carve is actually a retail ability, not SoD. They gave that to survival hunters when they were reworked into a melee spec in... I think legion? Perhaps the ability itself came at a later date but the point is it came before SoD existed. Just thought I'd mention that 'cause my brain tells me to do silly things.

Yeah never played those later expansions thankfully so wouldn't know.

Anyways hunters have multishot/volley and survival hunters have carve/explosive trap so they don't need help with aoe at all as far as I know. No, carve isn't getting removed. I don't think there's ever been a time in the six years of Twow where something got straight up deleted because some guy on the forums thought it wasn't "lore friendly" or "true to the class identity of being ONLY A RANGED CLASS AND NOTHING ELSE!!!! >:(" like we don't have WC3 to draw from for it's existence.

This feels like a pretty uncharitable interpretation of my post. I laid out a reasonable case for removing Carve and a number of people agreed with me, as part of the broader issue of class AoE-ification that came with SoD and retail. Yes the ability was in WC3 for a beastmaster half-ogre hero unit, that's it. We have to stop treating WC3 an RTS game as the holy greil blueprint for how to implement vanilla+.
Some elements are great to draw from, others not.

And I am not at all disillusioned that devs won't remove Carve, given their general unresponsiveness to CC2 feedback so far. A man can dream though.