Although I don't think this is the weakest the rogue class has ever been, I will tell you what I've seen since BC.
Several "changes" were made to the class at the start that looked just absolutely astounding. It isn't hard to see those that these changes soon showed their true color.
1.) Fleet Footed- This talent is still pretty good due to its movement impairing effects reduce chance. I used to think it would be astounding though, due to the run speed increase. It meant that we would never be kited by someone just simply walking the opposite way again. But then alas, look what happened. Every class has access to a movement increasing talent: there's even a new enchant that makes it even more ridiculous. Feral Druids get a +25% movement speed bonus from equips and are unable to be kited by just simply running the other direction, and it annoys me to no end that we don't have something similar. So, what seemed to be a really promising talent became pointless: your increase is the same as everyone elses, making you still kiteable by just simply running the opposite direction. I have no problems being kited by curse of exhaustion, or hunters with their snares or even rogues with crippling poison. That's a fair kite. When people (namely locks) just drop what they're doing and run the other way it hurts. If blind is down you're done for as you can't close distance and they can keep hurting you via dots or whatever else they want. Throw in paladin blessing of freedom in arena combat (even though it's getting nerfed soon thank god) and it's just plain stupid.
2.) Deadly Throw- Another ability that looked great but soon turned lackluster. In the incredibly rare chance that I do get the opportunity to interrupt a spell with it, the projectile moves too slow to be of any use on faster spells (lesser healing wave and flash of light to be exact). Even in a normal pvp situation where you're just trying to use it to slow someone down, it's nowhere near enough. You touch a mage and instantly are reduced to a pathetic movement speed: we throw something at them and they only take a 50% decrease. Deadly throw needs to root or slow them down more or something. Basically giving up combo points for a ridiculously stupid low damaging move with only a 50% movement reduction just usually isn't worth it. You're usually slowed by another movement impairing effect when you have the option to use this anyway, and yours is still weaker than theirs. The fact that you can't even use it if you get tagged when you have no combo points is yet another factor that makes this ability just stupid in the long run.
3.) Mutilate- I love mutilate. I love the CP generation and everything about it. What I don't love is how much people can ignore it. Resilience may very well one day be the death of this build, as it takes you longer and longer to kill foes (mainly because this build's damage is dependent on mutilate crit damage whereas other classes still throw strong non-crits of their abilities anyway) as resilience increases. Perhaps if they gave you a talent that ignored resilience instead of armor, or changed expose armor to do this, this might not be as big of a problem. As it is now, fights last longer and longer and that's a big bad sign for a mutilate rogue. Resilience has gotten so bad that it even has people speccing combat for pvp, has rogues acting more like bad warriors than rogues. It breaks my heart knowing that I may one day join them.
4.) Multiple Targets- Though not a talent, this does still bother me. Arena pvp requires one to be able to switch targets. For instance, a mage could get stupid and line of sight his healers. In that brief second, you need to jump from whoever you're on straight onto the mage. However if you do that, you'll have to start over from scratch: no combo points and no poisons on the target. By the time you've sucessfully switched targets your opportunity has passed. This is unlike the warrior class: they can be hurting someone badly and then switch at their own will, not stopping in damage for a second. Imagine warriors if you lost all of your rage everytime you switched targets, and that would be about what it's like for a rogue.
I will not say the class is broken because I don't think it is. I do think however that it has it harder than most, at least for the time being. So, I think the rogue class needs the following "additions" to become less of a "hard mode" class:
-Either make deadly throw root instead of slow or make it a move that is "casted" with the same cast time as throwing a knife but keeping all its original properties. Damage isn't an issue: it's meant to be a range closer, not a strong ranged ability.
-Some form of an intercept. The rumored sprint changes would fit this bill, but one can only hope that becomes the truth.
-Combo points saved to the rogue instead of saved to target. Make this a new talent even if you feel it is too overpowered.
-A -stun resist talent. Every class in the game has access to stun resist now, and since stuns are our best weapon it is quite annoying watching most of them resist.
-An ability to combat resilience: perhaps change expose armor to reduce resilience instead of armor.
Again, the part that I love about the rogue class is the challenge. It's just becoming very challenging indeed whereas I feel like most classes get it easier and easier.
Edit: Said 30 where I meant 50
Edited, Aug 17th 2007 8:53:56pm by Shaolinz
Edited, Aug 17th 2007 8:55:54pm by Shaolinz