The first two battlegrounds introduced were Alterac Valley and Warsong Gulch. Rogues were very powerful in Warsong Gulch. There was no arguing this, and rogues didn't try. Instead they ignored Warsong Gulch completely and refused to discuss anything other than Alterac Valley scoreboards. Ranged classes usually got the top killing scores in Alterac Valley, so rogues moaned that this disproved all claims of their advantages, and proved instead that casters were the ones with the advantage. Yes, all ranged classes were capable to getting top killing blows in Alterac Valley. So were rogues. By spec'ing daggers and rapid concealment, a rogue could easily stealth around the back lines of the enemy raid, picking off wounded players. A rogue spec'd for AV could just as easily take top killing blows. I did this many times with my own rogue. And there are roles in battlegrounds. A healer doing his job never got the top killing blows. Rogues should have become the primary scouts and graveyard ninjas. For a while they were. Unfortunately, Alterac Valley wasn't taken seriously long enough for real roles to develop or players to spec for it. It couldn't compete with the new Arathi Basin for honor and Blizzard made it into a gold farmers paradise.

During the next year, Blizzard began reviewing the classes. Eventually with the improvements to other eight classes, and limitations to stealth, surprise, and cooldowns, rogues lost their large advantages and all classes began to become balanced. This was very disquieting for players who believed they had never had any advantage, and had convinced themselves they were simply superior players. Losing fights and dying regularly was new to them. And they began developing a fantasy that other classes were not being finished, but rogues were being broken. And their new problems were not the result of their lack of skill, but new huge disadvantages. Alterac Valley fell off the map, and without it's scoreboards, rogues began to describe all pvp in terms of duels again. "I need EVERY cooldown to fight ANYONE. If I don't have EVERY cooldown, I have to run away and hide!" This is how they began to describe pvp in Arathi Basin.

Here's how Arathi Basin DOESN'T work; everyone runs up, stops, you point at a warrior and go "you and me!", then you and the warrior one on one while everyone else stands in a circle cheering. You did not pair off and duel. You did not face every opponent, who were always 100% prepared for you, in one on one combat. Now here is what did happen in Arathi Basin; unless you were in a shit pug, you worked as a team. When it came to killing the enemy team, dps worked together to take down the targets. This was the majority of your experience as dps in Arathi Basin. Assisting the other dps. When you were assisting to dps a priest down, did you need blind? evasion? sprint? or vanish? No you did not. You did not need cooldowns for the vast majority of fights. You did not need to use everything every time you swung at anyone. You did not need to stop helping your team, and run off and hide if for any reason a cooldown wasn't up. As with other classes, you had to prioritize when to use your abilities. There were important fights, like the rush for the Blacksmith. You did everything you could to win that fight. Or if you were defending a flag. Only if you were fighting crap teams would you ever try to solo shit (or if you were an complete idiot). In Arathi Basin, rogues were a great class. They weren't warriors, and were not as important to teams (no other class was). But they were still very strong dps and cc.

That didn't stop the cries of "We're a 1 fight per 10 minute class! We are worthless in group pvp!" Now how could anyone who had experience in Arathi Basin say anything so clueless? That is not how battlegrounds worked. Take a paladin for example, how strong are they in duels without their shields? Did they say "waaaah! we fight ONCE in AB, then we have to run away and hide until they are back up!" or frost mages, how well would they do in duels with no ice blocks or cold snap? "waaah! we fight ONCE in AB, then we have to hide!" They used their cooldowns, then kept right on fighting. They didn't become useless because they didn't have every ability available. Paladins could still heal, mages could still dps. Rogues could still stealth, cheapshot, kidneyshot, gouge, kick, and most importantly, dps. It was nonsense to pretend that every fight was a one on one with a player that had every one of their own abilities available. That's not how it worked. Not at all. So why did they say it? They were describing duels.

Without Alterac Valley, rogues returned to their old favorite, the duel, as the standard for class balance. Duels had always made things more difficult for rogues. Yet, as Ming showed with his dueling guides, rogues remained competitive in duels, but they took skill to win, a missing ingredient for most rogues. They described duels as if they were all other forms of pvp. "I need every cooldown to beat anyone! Then I have to wait for every cooldown to fight again!" They were describing duels, or a horrible lack of skill. Probably both. Were rogues really this stupid? Why be so dishonest about pvp? Surely no one is dumb enough to think that duels are the same as other forms of pvp? Then it becomes clear. Most of those rogues who made these claims, did not have any real experience with pvp. They have experience with duels. Not enough to become successful at them. These players may have pvp'd back in the day, but they have not been successful in real pvp, or do not understand it. Think of the rogues who really became successful in pvp. The rogues who reached rank 14 by winning thousands of battlegrounds against difficult teams. These players are more often than not happy playing a rogue. They may be unhappy with bugs, but do they call the class broken? Undoubtedly, there are some who do. Most of the rogues I know with a real understanding of pvp, with extensive experience, are not the bitter angry children who described battlegrounds or world pvp in terms of duels.