Preparation is a requirement for successful pvp. When you're prepared to fight, you have an advantage. Sometimes you were caught when you weren't ready. As a warlock you could be hit while you were drinking, or eating, or summoning a pet, or without mana after buffing, or without your cooldowns up. A rogue could always be prepared. He chose when to fight, not his opponent. Should he wait for them to drink? Wait until they have a mob? Rogues were able to wait for everything to be just right to hit. In world pvp, battles were not as frequent as in battlegrounds, and he could wait for every cooldown on every fight if he chose. These powerful abilities had been given timers to prevent them from being used constantly. It only limited them to once per fight in world pvp. This gave rogues another large advantage.

A stunlock is one of the most effective forms of control in the game. By stringing abilities together, a rogue could prevent an opponent from fighting back during an entire fight. While it would require the use of cooldowns to completely immobilize a player for endless durations, that wasn't usually necessary. Open with cheapshot, stunned for 4 seconds, if they are a caster, improved kick to extend the stun for 2 (warlocks only had shadow spells, and kick could effectively silence them for 4 seconds), kidney shot for 6 seconds, gouge to refill energy or restealth for another opening. None of these have long cooldowns. They can be used repeatedly in a fight, so long as 20 seconds is given for the diminishing returns to reset. None of these shared diminishing returns. All the while a player was stunned, a rogue was beating on them with their insane dps. Most players had under 4k life, and a 5 point Eviserate crit could take them down to 50% or lower. An opening with several Sinister Strikes or Backstabs followed by an Eviserate crit would nearly finish many opponents. Even if a rogue had wanted to make a spectacle of their abilities, there simply wasn't even time to use them. This was a problem for Mute when he wanted to show all of the abilities of a rogue. It was this desire to slow down fights that led him to start taking off gear. And yet no matter how much he took off, he never ran out of abilities! He could just keep it going until he was using nothing but Eviscerate to whittle opponents down.

Mute had bad gear as well. Watch some Nightslayer rogue videos from that time. Their opponents were down in seconds. How often was Evasion really necessary when an opponent dies that fast? How often was Vanish, other than to speed up fights with two openers? How often was the stunlock insufficient without Blind? Maybe if you were naked and wanted to drag a fight out for 1-2 minutes. But gear made things much faster and much simpler. In this form of pvp, the advantages of rogues put them above all opponents. Even without skill, simple stuns and dps was enough. If it wasn't, you could use your abilities and win anyway. If you had skill, and knew you could stay at a certain range to prevent intercepts, knew you could watch your dodges to anticipate overpowers and beat them to it with a gouge, knew Evasion would save you more damage against them, knew you could prevent mages from blinking by using disorients, knew how to counter their abilities by learning your own abilities beyond Sinister Strike and Cheapshot, you were unstoppable. Many players began looking for ways to make fights more difficult. This resulted in videos of rogues vs multiple opponents, and rogues fighting naked. World pvp was too easy for rogues.

Would they admit it? Of course a few would. Most didn't. They had come to believe they were superior players than people they decimated with a few simple button mashes, and weren't about to admit it was unfair. If anything, they said they were at a disadvantage. They ignored every advantage; the strength of surprise, stealth, stuns, and high dps. I think some rogues actually thought it took cat like reflexes to sneak up on their opponents, as if they were really ninjas hiding behind trees, rather than simply invisible. They claimed stunlocks were ineffective, they said (get this) that stuns were a waste because the stuns didn't do any damage. Well no crap, what you do while they are stunned is what does the damage. They pretended that stealth was no advantage. Surprise was no advantage. And that every cooldown was necessary to kill anyone. When Roguecraft came out, they said it was dishonest, because the fights didn't show real pvp. If Mute had shown real pvp, he would have shown that all rogues really have the same dps as a naked rogue, they would not have any advantage from gear, they would only get openings half the time (apparently staying unstealthed all the time), and he would have shown himself waiting 5 minutes afraid to fight anyone, until every cooldown came up. They were pretending that naked fights showed accurate pvp, the only difference being that in real pvp you would see that rogues can only kill people with every cooldown available. The same dps! As if all rogues needed 1-2 minutes to kill opponents. No stealth. And 5 minutes between fights as if every rogue needed enough cooldowns to draw a fight out that long. They were right that naked fights don't show real pvp. Real rogues use gear. And in real pvp, their opponents would be dead much faster. They did not need as many cooldowns. These fights were not inaccurate because they failed to show how bad pvp was, but because they failed to show how good it was! None of these arguments applied to real pvp. Stealth was extremely effective, surprise was very powerful, and rogues were not forced to wait for cooldowns, but could fight for as long as they wanted to. What in the hell were they talking about?

DUELS.

Rogues have developed a habit of only discussing their weakest form of combat as if it is the standard. During much of the first year, there was only world pvp. So they pointed to duels as the true gauge of class balance. In a duel, a rogue lost the advantage of surprise. You will never surprise an opponent in a duel. They know you are there in a small area, and they know you will come for them. They are always prepared for you, hovering their fingers over the defense buttons. Mages will aoe, hunters will lay traps and flair, warriors will shout, and shamans will lay their totems. Players wait for all cooldowns before dueling. A rogue is not the only class with timers. If you are fighting opponents who always know you are there, and are 100% prepared for you every time, you may be able to convince yourself that the advantages of stealth and surprise don't exist. And if you only fight frost mages with cold snap, you may be able to tell yourself that you need your cooldowns for every fight. That does not change reality though, and duels were not pvp reality.

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