I had a debate with a friend last night on which faction is better for Rogue, Alliance vs. Horde. He claims Horde, I claim Alliance. This is with a heavy PVP slant.
A lot changes in Allliance vs Horde for Rogue matchups. For instance, Horde Rogues have to PvP against Dwarves with Stoneform, which makes Blind worthless (especially annoying if someone also uses a Free Action Potion to become stun immune). Alliance Rogues get to PvP against Orcs with Stun Resistance, which unpredictably screws over stunlocks. Horde Rogues get to go up against Night Elf Druids. Alliance Rogues get to go up against Tauren Druids, which are a lot more powerful, because they can do extra shit like War Stomp -> Regrowth/Entangling Roots and have 5% more health unlike NElf Druids which just get +1% dodge and +5 stealth rating. Alliance Rogues are also more likely to deal with Warlocks using Succubus pets (Seduction is a charm effect, not a fear effect, so all you have is your PvP trinket against that). Alliance Rogues go up against Horde Priests with Devouring Plague (which is a joke
if you have Stoneform)+Touch of Weakness or Troll Priests with Shadowguard and Hex of Weakness. Horde Rogues go up against Alliance Priests which have Desperate Prayer and Stoneform (which are especially a joke if you have Will of the Forsaken). On the other hand Horde Mages are more manageable for Gnome Rogues than Alliance Mages are for Orc or Undead Rogues, but if you're using Free Action Potions, Living Action Potions, Improved Sprint, and Spider Belt you probably don't give a shit. In group PvP, Alliance Rogues are more likely to get Feared but can also receive Blessing of Freedom (which can get purged by Shamans or devoured by Felhunters) or Blessing of Kings. On Horde the Rogue could be Undead, and there is probably a Shaman dropping Tremor Totems, Windfury Totems, and the occasional Grounding Totem.
Generally Horde has it better for PvP, especially at the upper tiers of skill where Paladin blessings get purged on a regular basis. Windfury Totem is just crazy for Rogues in group PvP and even the 1v1 matchups tend to be a bit easier.
The only good PVP races for Horde are Undead and Orc. Troll is only somewhat decent in PVE but is dogshit in PVP. Undead currently is very strong because they can reliably break Fear and Orc's Hardiness racial can prevent stuns from landing. Orc also has Blood Fury which is a decent boost to damage and Undead have Cannibalize which is great when questing and can be somewhat clutch in PVP if timed precisely.
So why are Alliance Rogues better? Because Alliance Rogues all have racials that counter pick their biggest problems in PVP: Enemy Rogues and Mages
Undead frees up a trinket slot and works well against Warlocks, Priests, and Warriors (Intimidating Shout). Orc Hardiness works well against Rogues, Warriors, and Paladins for the most part, but can also come in handy against Impact procs from Mages, Blackout procs from Shadow Priests, and Tidal Charm trinkets or Engineering grenades.
Gnomes have Escape Artist, a free root escape which if you combine with other root escapes like Improved Sprint or the Spider Belt makes them almost unable to be kited. They also get a bonus to Engineering which is the best PVP profession.
Engineering bonus hardly matters unless you love using Arcanite Dragonling or you're doing twink PvP where the racial lets you use items that should not be available in your level bracket. Escape Artist is useful but it still runs into the problem that most slows are spammable. Escaping snares is valuable though.
Dwarves have Stoneform which completely fucks over Blind attempts and can and will win you skirmishes because of that. It also removes bleed effects and diseases which kind of gives them this Bizarro World Cloak of Shadows.
Stoneform is probably the best racial for Rogues unless you really hate Mages, but if you're being an asshole 1v1 ganker you can stack up a frost resist set more easily as a Dwarf if you want.
Humans have Perception which is a free opener. This makes Humans able to ignore Master of Deception if they want since they can boost themselves to having the sight of a high level 60 mob instantly. The skills they gain towards swords is also really nice and if you want to PVP as Combat this is probably the best race to do it as.
Perception is worthless in world PvP, because it's a massive cooldown that is only useful if you already know a Rogue is nearby
and the Rogue is stealthed
and the Rogue isn't using Vanish
and you don't have some other aoe or instant DoT or shit to knock him out of stealth. It comes in handy if a Rogue dismounts and stealths, sure, but otherwise not really. Most of the time, if you want an anti-Rogue racial as Alliance, you want to be a Dwarf, not a Human. Humans are pretty much trash for PvP. In BGs it's a bit more useful sure.
Also, just so you know, if a Hunter uses Detect Hidden while in a party with a Warlock that uses Felhunter, the Hunter has +60 stealth detection total. A Hunter with Bloodvine Lens has +40 stealth detection with just Detect Hidden. If a Warlock equips Catseye Goggles and uses a Felhunter, he has 48 stealth detection, almost the same as a Human activating Perception. Nothing is stopping Hunters from using Catseye Goggles (and/or Catseye Elixirs) either. It's not that hard for Horde to get high stealth detection.
Night Elves are underrated because many people don't understand how strong their additional stealth level really is. Good Rogue PVPers will have multiple sets lined up eventually and one of these will be a stealth/anti-stealth set. Night Elves, simply put, have the best stealth in the entire game. They start with a free talent point into Master of Deception and from there can boost it to retarded levels. With 5/5 MOD, a Night Elf actually has a little over 6/5 in that talent. Now throw in Nightscape Boots or later on Darkmantle Boots to increase your stealth level to 7/5 (Darkmantle's stealth gain is stronger than Nightscape), then toss in a stealth enchant to your cloak and you have 8/5. This makes it so a Night Elf Rogue is almost entirely undetectable unless they're standing straight on top of you. When they stealth, it is like they are in a passive version Vanish's improved stealth state. Stealth vs. stealthing them is being level 60 going up against a level 65/66.
The only ways you'll ever be able to hope to stand a chance at catching a stealth set NE out as a Horde Rogue is by speccing 2/2 Heightened Senses, using Catseye Elixirs and Catseye Goggles or keeping a Warlock with a Felhunter out 24/7. The only racial NE would ever have to worry about is Perception and since that'll only ever happen in duels they're pretty much on the right side of the fence. Even in an average Horde Rogue vs. NE Rogue scenario with the Horde Rogue trying to use Catseye consumables/items, the NE Rogue can do the same and destroy. If the NE doesn't, they still stand an actual good chance at catching the Horde Rogue out. NE, Dwarves and Humans slay Horde Rogues.
Night Elf is a total fucking shit pick for Rogues. +5 stealth and a slightly higher base agi is cute, but it is nowhere near as good as having a racial that is actually fucking useful for PvP. Worst case scenario you can pre-Vanish, but most of the time just circling around the back and 5/5 MoD is enough. You can even pre-Sprint if you feel like it. You can throw on a Cloak Enchant and/or +Stealth boots if you really want and it is typically more than enough if you're worried about being spotted. The extra 5 stealth from being a NElf in no way makes or breaks a stealth attempt. The closest you get to a neat trick is that if you have Shadowmeld, stealth boots, and a stealth enchant, you can probably just skip the 5/5 MoD and put those talent points elsewhere.
As for things such as Fear breaks, eventually when PVP's honor system releases every Rogue will get their insignia which has Fear/Polymorph as breakable effects. But if you really want to kill off every Shadow Priest and Warlock the real master combo is Blacksmith/Engineering. Shadow Reflector and grenades are one thing, but BS has this trinket called the Glimmering Mithril Insignia. When you use it, not only do you get some minor armor and resistances, but you gain complete immunity to all Fear effects for thirty fucking seconds. This item is retarded and breaks the Rogue vs. SP/Warlock fights. Even more, it trivializes WOTF's use because now you as an Alliance have three ways to shut down Fear. PVP trinket, Shadow Reflector, this Blacksmithing trinket. The only way a Warlock can hope to get something going is by using Seduce and an SP has to hope they outgear you and you make ridiculous mistakes. Having three ways to stop Fear paired with the CC and high damage of Rogues, you never should hit the third one realistically.
When it comes to it, Orcs/Undead are good at their base but the more things open up (especially Living Action Potions) in later phases and the more people get their gear rolling, Alliance Rogues IMO pull ahead.
The thing is, Glimmering Mithril Insignia is a 10 minute cooldown, PvP trinket is a 5 minute cooldown, and so is the Shadow Reflector. In BGs having an extra 2 min CD to resist Fears is a lot more useful. When it comes to Warlocks being UD also makes the difference between Succubus being a viable PvP pet against you or not.
Alright, time for another hot take post. This is partially inspired by
Kem0sabe bringing up how people obsess over BiS far more now than they did in Vanilla, a sentiment that I agree with. All my friends are AFK and I don't feel like doing dungs with randos so here we go.
Night Elf Priests aren't a bad choice. OK, Elune's Grace is pretty lame (it would be better if it lasted longer than 15s. 30s for 10% increased dodge chance would already be decent-ish), but Starshards isn't all that bad.
Elune's Grace is pretty bad tbh. Not only is the duration shit but if you dodge a Warrior he will instantly Overpower you for what will probably be a crit. And over the course of 15 seconds your odds are still low of successfully dodging a single attack from 'em. Now a Rogue on the other hand you're much more likely to at least dodge something while it's active. Factoring in the racial you get +11% dodge total, not enough to make a major difference, unless you are doing weird shit like using rings/enchants/trinkets with dodge on them.
Consider these points in favor of Starshards, the NE Priest racial spell:
-It's very mana efficient, only costing 300 mana to cast at max rank, versus Devouring Plague which is a whopping 985 mana.
That's a retarded comparison. They fulfill entirely different niches. Starshards competes with things like wanding, smiting, and mind flay. Devouring Plague is an extra DoT on top of your regular DoTs for more damage that also heals you for large amounts of life.
-Only the first tick counts as a spell cast, which means that the 5 second regen rule kicks in after that tick, making it ever so slightly more mana efficient.
The 5 second rule only cares about when you spend mana, not when you cast spells. If you can cast spells for free or for health (ie. Life Tap) you will still have the 5 second rule. This also means that if you cast a 3 second spell, you will continue to regenerate mana until you finish the spellcast (which is when you lose mana). But sure, you can use Starshards with Power Word: Shield to keep the 5 second rule going.
-It scales well with spell power, gaining 100% of your spell power from gear, so it can end up doing some nice damage.
The scaling is shit. It gets 100% of spell damage, but splits it over 6 seconds' worth of ticks (by contrast a regular spell does 100% of damage at 3.5 seconds of casting), so you only get 16.6666...% of spell damage per second. By contrast spamming smites wthout talents gives you 28.4% and Mind Flay (with its awful custom coefficient) with full Shadow talents does around 21.8% spell damage per second.
-Each tick counts as an interrupt, so it pushes enemy cast bars each time it hits the enemy.
This is actually useful, yes.
-It's an Arcane spell, the only one a Priest has. You can use it to bait people into interrupting you and they'll be screwed pretty hard if they do.
Burning interrupts on Starshards is one of the most retarded things a player can do. If someone does this, you are PvPing a fucking noob and you should be winning anyway.
-Because it's Arcane it can be cast in Shadowform, and because it scales so well with gear it can also be valuable for Holy specced Priests when grinding mobs.
Starshards does worse damage than Mind Flay in Shadowform. Hell, if you have Shadowform, it does worse damage than Mind Flay even outside of Shadowform.
-As an extra point, it gets turned into a DoT in TBC, if we ever get to TBC in Classic. You lose on the interrupt + bait aspect, but having access to an extra DoT that can also be used consistently in PvE without wrecking your mana pool is no small thing to poopoo at.
Because in TBC they finally redid the NElf racial spells to be less shit.
Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina
Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina
The Eye of Shadow
Benediction
Royal Seal of Eldre'Thalas
Conjure Water
Quel'Serrar
Arcanum of Focus
Key to the City
Shadowforge Key
