Mute and I both started playing as orc warlocks. As he was leveling, Mute realized the orc racials did not function correctly. Hardiness did absolutely nothing. About level 40, Mute decided to reroll undead. The undead had insanely powerful racials. At this time, fear was a much more powerful spell. WoTF gave a full 20 seconds of fear/charm immunity. It was a huge advantage in pvp. An undead warlock was unbeatable by other warlocks. But I convinced Mute to keep leveling his orc. I was sure Blizzard would fix the racials. We were only a week or two in at this point. They didn't fix it. We made several posts (along with other orc players) asking what the deal was. We never got a response. I heard a rumor that one thread got a "I'll look into it", I can't be sure, this was back when threads deleted. Eventually Mute rerolled his undead. I reached 60 on my orc, and kept playing for a few months. No forum responses. No fixes. Eventually I rerolled undead too, and time kept passing. We were on month 7 or 8 when Blizzard finally decided to fix the racials. Imagine my frustration after spending months leveling and gearing an orc to realize Blizzard might never fix the racials. Imagine my frustration after I spent several more months leveling and gearing an undead warlock, only to have Blizzard fix and buff the orc racials, and then nerf WoTF.

I'll take a moment to explain the only real "nerf" rogues have ever received. The attack power bonus was normalized for weapons with instant attacks. This is the most misunderstood change in the game's history. Most rogues had no idea how it affected them, they just screamed because it was a "nerf". Here's how it worked. Attack power adds to your weapon dps. 14 attack power = 1 dps. For example the Assassination Blade swings every 2.7 seconds, so 14 attack power adds 2.7 damage per swing (to give 1 more damage per second). With each Sinister Strike, you'd get (attack power / 14)* 2.7. The slower the weapon, the more you'd get from your attack power. The problem was that weapons were valued for their speed over any other attribute. A green dagger with 1.8 speed was considered more valuable than any dagger before MC. A Blue Barman shanker with 2.0 speed was considered more valuable than daggers in MC. Speed was all that mattered. The obvious problem was how could add new gear? Items were supposed to improve with new raids, but rogues were still using blues over epics. If you kept lowered the speed, attack power would become vastly more valuable with each 0.1. You couldn't improve upon a 2.0 dagger without sending dps through the roof. Blizzard needed to put the focus back on weapon damage.

So what they did was give weapon types a common "multiplier". They chose what they felt was the best median speed, 1.7 for daggers, 2.4 for swords, and use that to calculate the attack power bonus for most instant attacks. So for your Sinister Strikes, a 2.8 speed Krol Blade and 1.5 Hanzo Sword would both get same bonus (attack power / 14) * 2.4. This forced rogues to stop looking at speed, and start looking at weapons damage. Epics with very high min/max damage were better than blues with lower speeds (as it should be). This only affected instant attacks, it did not affect white damage.

So how much of a difference did this make? Not a whole hell of a lot. For example, with a Chromatically Tempered Sword (best sword in BWL). If you have 900 attack power (it'd take full epics at that time); Before normalization - (900 / 14) * 2.6 = 167. After normalization - (900 / 14) * 2.4 = 154. That's 13 damage lower on a sinister strike. And it only affected the instant attacks. Not exactly class breaking. But rogues screamed that it had destroyed their class. I mean, literally screamed. They threatened to quit. There were a few rogues like Ming who did tests, and found that it was not a significant change. They were treated as traitors. It was simply insane. A necessary change that affected several classes, and it's still remembered by rogues as one of the most horrible nerfs in WoW's history. It was amusing though, because so few understood how it actually worked. You'd still want slow weapons because they have higher min/max damage. But you'd see rogues main handing Julie's Daggers (1.3 speed dagger with very low min/max damage). And it was like what in the hell are you doing? And they'd respond "fast weapons are better now".

"How do you know they didn't just remove world pvp so people would play in battlegrounds." Then what was the point of ever having pvp servers? There is only one real difference between pvp and pve servers, and that is world pvp. With it removed from the honor system, there's no difference. Please don't tell me that Blizzard created different servers, knowing that they would remove the only difference.

Here's one example of the failings of Blizzard's Honor System. For a while Mute ran in a pug with a warrior named Moby. If anyone ever deserved rank 14 it was Moby. He was just a nice guy who got sucked into Blizzard's honor system. He pvp'd 16 hours a day (himself) for months. This was at a time when only one player (typically) could reach rank 14 at a time. This required being number 1 on the server for multiple weeks. Those last weeks, a player was forced to pvp constantly to beat the competition. If he missed it by even a fraction, he was forced to pvp another week. This resulted in players attempting to discourage their competition. Players would wage hate campaigns against each other to persuade them to give up. Moby was above this. He was just a good hearted guy. He even forbade his pug members from trash talking or spitting on opponents. At the other end of the spectrum was one warlock. He had reached rank 14, and his group continued to pvp non-stop, allowing each member to reach rank 14 in turn as he saw fit. He arrogantly believed that it was his right to decide who reached rank 14, and when. So his pug members began making forum posts against Moby, calling him a scrub, and whispering him to give up. Eventually he did. He quit without ever reaching rank 14. This should never have happened in a game people play for fun.

For a very long time, it was only possible for usually one player to become rank 14 at a time. This was when the competition had been the highest. Eventually Blizzard allowed more players to reach rank 14 at a time. And the most competitive players had reached rank 14, so there was less competition. So at the later stages of the honor system, it because slightly easier to reach, yet it was never attainable by the vast majority of players.

We've only discussed pvp, which is what the roguecraft films were concerned with. The subject of pve is different, and more complicated. Rogues have always claimed that they are not able to find guilds or groups. They attributed this to a lack of utility or purpose in pve. The truth is that rogues could not find guilds or groups because there were so damn many of them. There has never been a guild that did not accept rogues. But when a third of the server is rogue, it's unrealistic to think there will be enough room for all. Competition for guilds and groups was much higher among rogues than warlocks, which was one of the least played classes. What rogues don't understand is that utility does not guarantee a spot in pve. Warlocks were vital in Molten Core for Banish. But this only guaranteed that a guild would bring 2-3. They would not bring extra warlocks even though the class had a purpose. Mages have a real purpose in groups/guilds. They make food and water, and in some instances they are able to polymorph. Again, this only guaranteed that you'd bring some mages. Not that every mage who wanted to join would be given a spot. One or two mages can supply an entire raid with water. The same is true for every class that has utility in pve. If warlocks had been as popular as rogues, and there had been thousands competing for spots in raids and 5 mans, they would not have done any better than rogues, regardless of banish, health stones, and soul stones. Every guild has had problems with recruitment. It is very difficult to fill 40 or even 25 spots. Rogues were easy to find, and provided solid dps. For this reason, every guild had rogues, regardless of their lack of unique utilities. But rogues have been vital to many encounters. BWL would be impossible without them.

I've heard it claimed that guilds were replacing their rogues with hunters. If we could have taken 30 hunters to Onyxia, I probably would have. Just as I would have taken 30 mages to Ragnaros. Or 30 rogues to Vael. You don't have that option though. There are issues with people fighting over loot, not being able to find enough of each class, or finding a player who's well geared, skilled, and dependable. Selecting recruits is so much more complicated than "oh he's a rogue, I'd rather have a 9th hunter, rejected".

Most pve complaints were summed up with "warriors out dps us". While warriors were able to do amazing damage, few rogues understood how this worked. It was incorrectly assumed that this was because warriors were able to find more attack power. In reality, rogues apply their attack power more often than warriors typically do. The reason warriors were able to out dps other classes was due to rage generation. The more damage a warrior did, the more rage he was able to generate. Eventually, with the best items, a warrior could out dps any one. Rage generation was later normalized to solve this problem. Warriors were also able to out dps a rogue in aoe situations. But generally the examples of warriors out dps'ing rogues were from the most extreme cases; warriors wearing the most rare and powerful weapons and armor. Unlike a rogue, warriors were also unable to lower their threat. While it would be fine to have a warrior go all out on a simple MC boss, it could be disastrous in other encounters.

While there was never any real threat of rogues being replaced by other classes, or the lack of utility preventing them from joining guilds, rogues did have a few legitimate concerns. Rogues have been too fragile in raids. They are forced to stay up front where they are often vulnerable to damage ranged classes can avoid. While a rogue can usually avoid cleaves, and can run from whirlwinds, it can be difficult to stay alive.

Other reasons rogues have viewed themselves as broken include the idea that duels are an indication of class strength; they are not. Rogues lose many of their advantages in a duel. The player knows you're there in a small area. They are prepared for you. A mage can aoe to find you. A hunter can lay down traps and flair. In actual pvp, hunters do not know you are there. They may suspect a rogue is around and flair, but they do not run spamming flair 5 seconds. A mage does not spam aoe constantly in case a rogue is near. If a hunter or mage sees you, you don't have to attack them. You can stay back and wait for help. You will never catch a player off guard in a duel.

Another reason was the caster trinkets. These made any talk of balance impossible. The trinkets were overpowered. And because the trinkets were overpowered, the classes that could use them were seen as overpowered. Players should never have been able to stack trinkets. The reality though, is that the majority of warlocks and mages did not have the trinkets before their nerf. RTZS raided MC for like 6 months, and we only got like 2-3. The ZG trinket was easier to get. But both of these required you to raid. Most players did not raid. Even if you did raid, what was the chance of getting a Talisman from MC? Pretty low for most people. Eventually they were nerfed, and melee were given their own.

Warlocks had been based on an idea called "Risk vs Reward"; very powerful spells balanced with high costs, difficult reagents, and complex play. For example a Doomguard required a very expensive reagent, a one hour cooldown, and a party of 5, and the spell killed a random party member, potentially the warlock, which would make the entire thing a waste. In reward the warlock was supposedly able to have a powerful pet temporarily. Soul Shards were a reagent for many warlock abilities, each of these shards required the warlock to kill a mob high enough to give experience. Players did not give soul shards. So a player was required to farm before any pvp. Rogues said they couldn't use blind because it cost too much. I wish I could have bought soul shards. In the example warlock fight of Episode 2, Mute used 6 or 7 shards. That's 6 to 7 mobs Mute had to grind for that one fight. There were fights where he spent far more. Watch any Destruction warlock video made at the time, they went through shards like candy. Imagine having to stop pvp'ing every few hours to go grind mobs for an almost equal amount of time before you could pvp again.

Warlocks had an enormous amount of abilities. I don't think any class required such different strategies for each class. Not just different strats, but different abilities. Many abilities on Pets which may or may not be out. Pets could be very useful in specific situations, but to change a pet required an enormous amount of mana, a sould shard, and a 10 second cast. Pets were a huge hassle because they were so easily lost. Whenever you were in combat, a pet slowed in speed so that it couldn't outrun a player. But whenever a warlock was riding his mount, any mob they rode past would put them in combat, and they would either have to stop and wait for the pet, or have it despawn. Every time the warlock died or every time he went on a flight path, the pet would despawn, and had to be resummoned with another expensive 10 second cast and another shard.

Warlocks dps was spread out over 30 second damage over time spells and onto their pets. They were given fear which began as a powerful tool. The control allowed warlocks to draw out a fight long enough for their damage over time spells to work. Warlocks were the most crowd control dependant of all classes.

This idea failed. Players didn't care what opponents went through or how complicated. If a player looked overpowered, players did not care why. So Blizzard balanced warlock abilities so that they would be balanced even if the complicated class was played well and had their reagents. The Doomguard and Infernal were all but impossible to use. Effectively Blizzard removed the rewards. They did not remove the risks. Warlocks still had to spend absurd amounts of time farming to even pvp. They introduced the honor system a few months before they allowed warlocks to gain shards from players. So warlocks had to say to their WSG team "sorry guys, have to go farm shards for a few hours".

It pissed people off to be crowd controlled, so Blizzard began removing crowd control from pvp. The problem for warlocks was that they were the most dependant on crowd control. Yet Blizzard's changes were made straight across the board as if all classes were the same. How much did this change effect rogues? Not at all. How much did it affect warlocks? Greatly. Players didn't like losing control of their characters, well that's great, but what do you give warlocks in exchange for taking away their primary ability? Nothing. Fear was weakened over and over again in the next patches. It was changed to break on damage, it was given diminishing returns (so that it could only be used twice (the first time would last nearly 15 seconds without damage, the second half that length (7 seconds max) and the last was ineffective as it only lasted 3 seconds max). Trinkets were introduced that gave fear escapes to many of our most difficult opponents. This made life a nightmare for alliance warlocks facing undead rogues with pvp trinkets. Our cc's were put on the same diminishing returns. No longer were warlocks annoying to other classes.

Yet despite the fact that players didn't like losing control of their characters, rogue cc remained on separate diminishing returns, and stuns were as effective as ever. Why? I can only imagine it's because rogues made up the highest percentage of Blizzard's player base, while warlocks were the lowest played (even below faction specific shamans and paladins). I know that not every class was finished at release, and Blizzard was busy, but why was Blizzard content to let one class remain unfinished for nearly a year, and introduce drastic changes to make the class less annoying without offering alternate fixes, and let them go into pvp without the ability to even gain shards in pvp, and fight the finished classes? Again, nobody played warlocks, so it wasn't that big of a deal (I guess). Neither was talking to warlocks to explain why this was happening. The warlock moderator never communicated with them. After major nerfs, he'd ignore them for months, and if he did respond it was usually with a snide comment like "I can't moderate the forums every minute of the day!".

As melee classes gained enormous damage from gear and weapons, casters had kept the same dps from release. As fights became shorter, the 30 second dots were simply ineffective. Especially in group pvp where they were cleansed away by extremely inexpensive dispels that could be automated with mods. Almost all warlocks were Affliction for pvp. Destruction was a luck build, because there was no way for most warlocks to get enough crit to make it dependable. WIth 10% to 13% chance to crit, when you may only cast 3 or 4 spells with a chance to crit per fight, it was not something you could count on. Every once in a while you'd get lucky, but that was the exception. Destruction did not yet have an instant cast Conflagration, and was not capable of it's current burst damage. Demonology was an interesting choice, but not a popular one. There was a strong ability at the end of the tree, but nearly everything on the way down (besides for a few early talents) was worthless garbage. To give up so much for one talent seemed a waste. Soul Link was a very strong ability though against some classes. It cost nearly 400 mana for 30 seconds. You had to be careful to keep it up, or else an entire talent tree was wasted. If you were fighting a dispeller, or a group with a dispeller, your entire talent tree was wasted. Demonology was later overhualed, and Soul Link made a constant buff that could no longer be dispelled.

Warlocks were not unbalanced against all classes. Primarily they had problems against dispellers and melee. Not long after our movies, Blizzard finally got to fixing warlocks. They addressed nearly all of the concerns. Warlocks were given Death Coil, an instant fear that couldn't be prevented with trinkets, fear ward, wotf, deathwish/berserker rage, or any other anti-fear ability. It gave warlocks a chance to knock melee off. Damage over time spells were given shorter durations while keeping the same damage. Talent trees were reworked to make each tree a real option. Gear was completely overhauled to provide casters with damage in addition to stamina. Soul shard costs were eased as Blizzard refunded shards for pets lost to flights. Soul shards had also become obtainable in pvp (this happened before the movies). Warlocks were no longer unbalanced against certain classes. It was argued that warlocks were actually overpowered against some. Death coil was 100% necessary against the classes warlocks had issues with. It wasn't so necessary against the classes they didn't. It's 30 yard range allowed it to be used as an interrupt. Together with a Felhunter, and the new Demonology spell resist buffs, a Soul Link warlock could be very difficult for mages. I had expected Death Coils range to be lowered to limit it to melee encounters. But, as other classes had their reviews, they too were made stronger, and the advantages of finished classes were given to all.

So in summary, warlocks had been very unfinished, and had suffered through serious issues for nearly a year, they had been lacking against certain classes. And yet I wouldn't ever have called them a broken. They've always been a very enjoyable class to play. After the movies, they were finished, and became a stronger class. While they kept many the orginal annoyances from risk vs reward, these were not as serious as the concerns that had been fixed. Warlocks may have been too strong against a few classes for a short time until those classes had their own reviews. In our videos, we did not say that warlocks were a terrible class, only that they had more problems than rogues, and had issues with certain classes, rogues in particular. These were all real problems, and thankfully they were addressed.

Let's look at some of the people who made the claims. At the end of his spoof "World of Warlockcraft", Slai says "Thanks to Mute for finding retards". He then responded to our video on warcraftmovies.com with "The pvp is bad". I hope everyone downloads his pvp movie so they can see a true ninja in action (http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=2204). Those fights versus mounted greens, greens with partial health, greys, and duels with players several levels lower were all very impressive.

In his video "Polzie 2", Polzie decides to make some rather brilliant points about World of Roguecraft. He says "Lets see how much a mage without any critical fears imba rogues". He then shows a rank 14 mage with double trinkets ride up on 2 rogues in blues and greens. He activates arcane power, the Talisman of Empherimal Power, and ZG Trinket, oh, and did I mention he also has Berzerking? The mage then 2 shots both rogues. According to Polzie this is proof that Roguecraft was all lies, because a rank 14 trinket mage with berzerking could kill unstealthed rogues with far less gear. You're a bright young man Polzie. I suppose that just disproves all of the points about stealth allowing rogues to get the majority of openers. I mean, that single video showed two rogues that weren't stealthed, I guess that means rogues don't ever stealth. And since rogues don't stealth, that disproves any argument about the power of stunlocks. And seeing as a rank 14 mage with 2 trinkets (shortly after nerfed) and berserking can 2 shot rogues in greens and blues (or any other class), that must mean we lied about rogues. Because what you showed is reality. You're so smart!

Then in a later video, Polzie demonstrates yet more of his brilliance by proving that Mute lied about warlocks. Despite the fact that warlocks were given huge buffs between the time that Mute made roguecraft, and Polzie made his shitfest, Polzie acts as if he's just better with his 1.9 warlock than Mute was on his 1.7 warlock, and Mute just didn't know how to hit that death coil button, which warlocks didn't have at the time. Did I mention that warlocks received huge buffs after roguecraft? And that what Polzie was showing was almost a completely different class?

Not all rogues were willing to look so stupid. The vast majority hide on alts when lobbing hateful comments or absurd accusations. Why would anyone need to make accusations behind alts? Because they know they aren't true, or aren't sure. Rather than risk being embarrassed, they hide behind alts, so they can comfortable smear us with their idiotic shit. At one time, Mute and I would respond to accusations in the Rogue forums. As soon as we made an appearance, every rogues immediately stopped posting on their main, and began posting on alts. Eventually we stopped responding to alts. They'd scream "why don't you acknowledge my accusations!?!" Anyone who is too afraid to post with their main knows full well that their accusations are full of shit.

So you look at these people, who are not only stupid, but also hypocritical, and you can draw your own conclusions about the accusations they make.

Mute and Aaron are fans of Blizzard who played World of Warcraft from its release until fall 2006. They've had many adventures in the game;

- Mute and Aaron authored of the Roguecraft videos, one of the most highly downloaded series of WoW videos ever.
- Mute had a 60 of every class except warlock. He had two 60 warlocks. These characters were all on Arthas (Horde) and Archimonde (Alliance). He played extensively with each to understand how every class worked. His favorite classes were Warlock, Rogue, Paladin, and Priest, which were all his main at different points.
- Mute was the guild leader of a successful raiding guild. Under his leadership, Rogues Take Zero Skill cleared content faster than nearly any other guild on Arthas. This includes ZG, AQ20, MC, BWL, and the first 3 bosses of AQ40 in a single Summer and Fall. At the end, Mute's rogue had full Bloodfang, a Thunderfury, Chromatically Tempered Sword, and many other purple delights.
- Mute's original Warlock (Idonttalk) was the first 60 warlock on Arthas.
- Mute and Aaron ran Scholomance 3-5 times a day for over 3 months. This was at a time when Scholomance was a desired raid for "end game" items. Scholomance was still a rather difficult 10 man raid, usually lasting 3 hours. Mute's raids were less than half the length of typical Scholomance runs. Healers were not allowed to stop, they were forced to begin drinking during the 1-2 second breaks in combat between pulls. Mute had macros describing every room. Each pull was carefully planned, and players were required to stand and walk in exact locations to prevent getting extra mobs. During the 6 rooms, Mute would pull multiple bosses or full rooms at a time. There were many times we'd be fighting the aoe boss and his skeleton guards only to hear "oh shit! here comes the butcher!", a few seconds after the butcher we'd get a stream of poison zombies. These runs became so fast and effecient that Mute had a long waiting list. Many veterans of Arthas fondly recall running Scholomance with Mute for their dungeon set helm. Many still say it was the most fun they ever had in WoW. Mute never recieved the Headmaster's Charge he was after.
- Mute played a level 1 Dwarf Rogue named Boxcarhobo on Arthas Alliance. Mute added desired opponents to Boxcarhobo's friend list to track them down for Episode 1. It took Mute nearly 3 months to find all of his opponents. Arthas players would see Boxcarhobo riding the tram between Stormwind and Ironforge all day. Whenever players approached, Boxcarhobo would ask for alchohol in exchange for singing Michael Bolton hits or tales about his life. Boxcarhobo, the virtual bum, became widely known around the server and was a popular forum topic.

The brothers closed their accounts in Fall 2006. They are currently students in real life. If you'd like to talk to either Mute or Aaron, feel free to stop by the forums.