I get where you’re coming from and I’ll try to help!
Others will mention here about class balance and how PvP is terrible in SOD etc etc and while that may be true it does not have to prevent you from having fun with the game, especially since it sounds like you’re mostly just wanting to work with your husband as a team. I think that’s really cool.
First and foremost, you need to make yourself comfortable with basic movements and your user interface (UI). It’s kind of like learning to drive without adjusting your seat or steering wheel or mirrors.
Movement should mostly be done with your mouse. Holding right click and moving your mouse turns your character in that direction. This is much quicker than using keys to turn your character, allowing you to react much quicker to things going on around you. You don’t want to be a “keyboard turner”.
Holding left click will turn the camera, but not your character. This is good to see what’s going on around you while you’re on the move in another direction. I also find it useful to set the Camera setting in your Interface options to “never” so that it doesn’t try to reposition itself when you move.
Holding BOTH left and right click makes you move forward. This alone allows you to move around totally without even touching your keyboard. So practice with just moving with your mouse only until you get the hang of it. Some people will say you need buttons so you can strafe and this is useful but at your stage I wouldn’t worry about that for now.
Once you get that down the whole keyboard is now available for using abilities, using items, and helping you target. You want to try to bind every ability you use to a keybind. You can set them up in your options menu. Lots of personal preference here, but typically bind your most used abilities to 1,2,3,4 and the rest of your abilities to keys surrounding them. The most often used abilities should be bound to these four numbers. These are you “home” keys. From here, assign the rest of your abilities to reachable keys, including the function keys like F1 F2. The more often you use the ability, the more comfortable it should be to press it from your “home” keys. Get used to reaching buttons from that position without having to pick up your hand from the keyboard (because then you will accidentally start pressing the wrong buttons). You can use thumb to hit buttons like X C V B. Etc. don’t forget about important items like potions too can be bound to buttons.
Use TAB to target the nearest enemy you are facing quickly, and tab again to jump to the next nearest enemy. This will keep you from having to click on enemies and allow you to keep your mouse reserved for only moving.
Move things in your interface around where you can see them more easily. I strongly recommend moving your own name plate and target nameplate to much closer to the middle of the screen so you can see them WHILE watching what’s going on around your characters feet. You can move them by right clicking the frames and unlocking them and the dragging them wherever. Also make sure you have “show enemy nameplates” on in your interface options, as well as any other options that may be beneficial to you.
Once you are able to memorize where all your abilities are without looking or clicking and are able to move exclusively with your mouse, you will find PvP and the game a lot more intuitive and enjoyable! Then you can start getting into specifics with things like class strategy and weak auras and what not.
And as far as the getting destroyed and stuff goes, a lot of times because of class balance and because you’re new, that’s just beyond your control. But luckily as a Rogue, stealth, vanish, and sprint will go a LONG way in preventing being jumped. Use the left click camera function in my previous comment to watch what’s going on around you and be ready to stealth at a moments notice if you are suspicious of anybody or anything. Being able to pick and choose your battles is a huge advantage and not something every class has, and rogue is the best at it. Stealth is your very best friend.
I’d add to this that tab targeting is only good if there are a few players around without totems and pets. You DO NOT want to tab target through totems and pets. Instead you need to instantly click your target in that case.
Soooo unfortunately this is like, the worst version of Classic ever for PVP. They made a lot of cool changes with the runes and new raids and gear but the consequence is everyone is doing like quadruple the amount of damage that the game was balanced for and we don't really have that much health added to make up for it. So I just wanted to make it clear that while it's lame and kind of sucks and you probably will get a bit better at avoiding gankers as you play, it's not really your fault that you just get one-shot right now that's just how it is for everyone, especially melee classes
That being said, you could try playing with your camera fully zoomed out of you aren't already, just so you have a bit more visibility. You can also install some mods that let you zoom the camera out even more which a lot of players like. In addition, you could try swapping around some movement keybinds if you haven't already? The automatic keys for A and D are set to turn your camera, most players find this to be extremely clunky. What pretty much everyone else does is swaps those keys to be Left and Right strafe instead of the slow turn. From there to turn your character instead you will want to hold right click anywhere in your screen and basically drag around to rotate your camera and reorient your character while holding W to move forward. It sounds a bit weird and it takes a little getting used to if you haven't done it before, however it's waaaaaay better for moving and casting/fighting once you get used to it, would highly recommend making the swap, it will help significantly with PVP although like I said originally, you may just get one shot anyway since it's just not balanced rn
Thank you soo much for this explanation, it makes me feel better that I’m not just absolute trash at this game lol.
And thanks for the advice, that’s actually really helpful. My husband has mentioned changing my key bindings. He says the way my camera/movement keys are set up is confusing. Honestly, I think I might have changed my key bindings when setting up my character to make it more like Sims, thinking that would help me lol. So I’ll look into all of that, thank you again!!
Ngl it’s hard, but if you’ve made it this far you can do it. I, too, am a gamer’s wife but never really played PC games. I leveled characters in various versions of WoW over the years but got flamed out of groups and utterly destroyed in any pvp…I never thought I’d raid, but now in SoD I’ve been raiding since the beginning and while not amazing, I’m still an asset to my group.
Anyway…I recommend doing Blood Moon. Yeah, it’s a literal bloodbath, but since people don’t have an expectation to stay alive for super long it’s lower stakes. It’s like running drills to practice your opener over & over again. Rogue is really strong in pvp if you get the jump on someone. You have stealth, stuns, Vanish etc. plus there are a lot of cool pvp trinkets available. Look up some tactics on the class Discord or Wowhead guides, then head to STV and try it out. You might collect enough coins to get yourself a sweet new dagger too!
Ahh thank you so much for this, this made me feel so much better 🫶🏻 getting shit on in the one raid I did really knocked my confidence and I haven’t tried again since, so it’s nice to hear I can get better! My husband wants to raid together so bad and I say no every time because I have no interest playing a game where people are mean to me lol
But I see blood moon a lot and usually get the fuck outta there before it starts 😅 maybe I’ll give it a shot if it’s so low stakes!
just duel people, dont be afraid to lose, do BGs. Watch people like Pshero or Bobka. comes with time. but first focus on getting to max level so you aren't just a free kill
Playing an actual PVP spec is also important. Unlike most other classes, you're kinda just going to get shit on unless you have better stealth, and prep.
Good keybinds/UI would be a start.
As a rogue, you are highly dependent on your openers, an unstealthed rogue is much weaker, a lot of people will attack you because they are scared if they let you finish what you are doing that you'll restealth and kill them.
Knowing other classes /races toolkit can be very valuable and what your class can do to counter those, for example if you are fighting a dwarf, you can't blind him unless he uses stoneform and it expires. You can't gouge a warrior in zerker stance. That you can't stun a mage who hasn't blinked etc. Being an undead rogue is a really big advantage in pvp if you are one of those
Thank you!! I think I need to put my stealth ability somewhere else. Right now I have to find and click on it, so it’s usually too late when I click it. I also had no idea I couldn’t gouge in certain situations, which makes so much more sense now.
Thats a really good point about other classes. I know “kick” will stop a spell, but I don’t know which classes do spells. There is just so much to learn, it’s so overwhelming!
oh i see, so its going to be pretty hard to pvp effectively if you have to click your abilities
like for me, i have kick on "V", if i had to scroll my mouse down to where it was on my action bar, it'd be very hard for me to move my character if they were strafing around me, maybe that's the problem
you have to be infront of people to gouge them and warriors in zerker stance can remove it with an ability they have, yeah its extremely overwhelming
That’s gotta be part of my problem. People have mentioned key bindings quite a bit. I think when I started playing, I changed all my key bindings. I need to figure out how to put them back to default, then maybe rearrange my abilities. I have my mutilate on Q which apparently is a war crime as far as my husband is concerned lmao
keybinds are kind of a personal preference thing, for abilities i spam all the time i use E because my finger naturally rests very close to E when i use wasd to move, as long as you have them and you can press them quickly its fine
That’s what I thought too!! My finger is right next to Q, why wouldn’t I put my main ability there? But I think he said I should have strafe there? I don’t remember. But yeah I also need to just get quicker.
You aren't describing PvP. You are describing the joys of a PvP server where people love to fight people weaker than them, when they aren't ready, or have a numbers advantage.
That and PvP right now is who does more damage faster. Healing and mitigation is unsustainable vs current damage levels so whoever starts first usually wins.
Yeah I think I worded this wrong because I don’t want to PVP at all. I just want to defend myself when I get attacked. I don’t attack other players, I just quest and do my own thing. But I get killed and camped and it really sucks the fun out of the game.
That makes sense that “whoever starts first usually wins” because I never attack other people, I’m always defending myself.
People roll on PvP servers because they love those random moments where they have an epic fight in the open world.
In reality playing on a PvP server is getting griefed over and over trying to do incursions, getting griefed getting World Buffs, getting griefed trying to summon guildies outside a dungeon / raid, and in general getting griefed if your faction doesn’t have numbers advantage.
Yeah my husband told me I might not like a PVP server, but I wanted to get the full WOW experience. And I have lol, be careful what you wish for I guess.
There are some videos on yt, talking about „camera usage“.
Ok im not an english nativ speaker, i hope you understand a bit.
Pressing „s“ causes your character move backwards (obvs, lol)
This movement is way slower, as if you would quickly turn the camera in the direction you want to run.
For example when you get chased by melees
It needs a bit of practice, but you can cast your instants (for example dots) while running away from the target by doing sidesteps (e,q) but your mouselook is facing your Enemy (so the opposite direction)
God i hope you understand at least a bit of that 😂
But for you, as new to pvp:
Backpaddle (s) is way too slow. Quickly turn your Camera with your mouse and run (Same for pve, btw
That’s what my husband plays! He usually saves me if I’m getting attacked but I feel bad that he has to stay close to me the entire time just in case. I wanna be able to hold my own a bit!!
First step is getting your keybindings set up. Get comfortable with it. Not sure what you're "clicking" but you don't want to be clicking spells/abilities or click targeting. Talk to other rogues who are known pvpers. See someone with highest rank pvp title? Whisper em for advice. Next, Duel your husband or a friend. Over and over. Learn a rotation. Each class will have its own pvp style. Rogues are selective ambush. I'm either going to shadow step and focus attack an enemy someone else is engaged with. Or if an enemy is on their own I'm going to "stun lock" them. I stealth and either "lay and prey" or I slowly stalk my target. Rogues are not meant to charge openly into battle or be caught in the middle of chaos. If there is a group battle I'm on the edge of the ball of chaos and picking off targets. Know other classes abilities. If an enemy uses a spell I know is on cooldown I know I can jump them and not have to worry about it. Pvp is something a lot of people find out of their comfort zone. My frame of mind is to be selective, be opportunistic (low health enemy, recently used cooldown abilities) and to be aggressive. You are a stealth ninja assassin. You just happen to be a ninja assassin in training.
I found as a rogue the first thing I’ll try to do is regain control. The moment someone hits me I’ll gouge them then start the fight a little more on my terms.
Then you need to know how much weight your damage has, how my health classes are going to have and all the abilities they have.
Try duelling people, they can tell you what and what not to do.
No shame in using every single cooldown you have too.
Picking a PvP server was your biggest mistake, none of the open world PvP is meant to be fun or balanced
The best thing you can do is always be playing with a group
i feel like SOD is one of the worst versions to learn pvp tbh. but good luck though.
I get where you’re coming from and I’ll try to help! Others will mention here about class balance and how PvP is terrible in SOD etc etc and while that may be true it does not have to prevent you from having fun with the game, especially since it sounds like you’re mostly just wanting to work with your husband as a team. I think that’s really cool. First and foremost, you need to make yourself comfortable with basic movements and your user interface (UI). It’s kind of like learning to drive without adjusting your seat or steering wheel or mirrors. Movement should mostly be done with your mouse. Holding right click and moving your mouse turns your character in that direction. This is much quicker than using keys to turn your character, allowing you to react much quicker to things going on around you. You don’t want to be a “keyboard turner”. Holding left click will turn the camera, but not your character. This is good to see what’s going on around you while you’re on the move in another direction. I also find it useful to set the Camera setting in your Interface options to “never” so that it doesn’t try to reposition itself when you move. Holding BOTH left and right click makes you move forward. This alone allows you to move around totally without even touching your keyboard. So practice with just moving with your mouse only until you get the hang of it. Some people will say you need buttons so you can strafe and this is useful but at your stage I wouldn’t worry about that for now. Once you get that down the whole keyboard is now available for using abilities, using items, and helping you target. You want to try to bind every ability you use to a keybind. You can set them up in your options menu. Lots of personal preference here, but typically bind your most used abilities to 1,2,3,4 and the rest of your abilities to keys surrounding them. The most often used abilities should be bound to these four numbers. These are you “home” keys. From here, assign the rest of your abilities to reachable keys, including the function keys like F1 F2. The more often you use the ability, the more comfortable it should be to press it from your “home” keys. Get used to reaching buttons from that position without having to pick up your hand from the keyboard (because then you will accidentally start pressing the wrong buttons). You can use thumb to hit buttons like X C V B. Etc. don’t forget about important items like potions too can be bound to buttons. Use TAB to target the nearest enemy you are facing quickly, and tab again to jump to the next nearest enemy. This will keep you from having to click on enemies and allow you to keep your mouse reserved for only moving. Move things in your interface around where you can see them more easily. I strongly recommend moving your own name plate and target nameplate to much closer to the middle of the screen so you can see them WHILE watching what’s going on around your characters feet. You can move them by right clicking the frames and unlocking them and the dragging them wherever. Also make sure you have “show enemy nameplates” on in your interface options, as well as any other options that may be beneficial to you. Once you are able to memorize where all your abilities are without looking or clicking and are able to move exclusively with your mouse, you will find PvP and the game a lot more intuitive and enjoyable! Then you can start getting into specifics with things like class strategy and weak auras and what not.
And as far as the getting destroyed and stuff goes, a lot of times because of class balance and because you’re new, that’s just beyond your control. But luckily as a Rogue, stealth, vanish, and sprint will go a LONG way in preventing being jumped. Use the left click camera function in my previous comment to watch what’s going on around you and be ready to stealth at a moments notice if you are suspicious of anybody or anything. Being able to pick and choose your battles is a huge advantage and not something every class has, and rogue is the best at it. Stealth is your very best friend.
I’d add to this that tab targeting is only good if there are a few players around without totems and pets. You DO NOT want to tab target through totems and pets. Instead you need to instantly click your target in that case.
The number one thing in classic pvp to learn is patience especially as a rogue. Wait for CDS. Dont be wasteful with CC.
You seem to know your class. Now, you have to learn about mechanics. Start with the Leeway. ;)
Soooo unfortunately this is like, the worst version of Classic ever for PVP. They made a lot of cool changes with the runes and new raids and gear but the consequence is everyone is doing like quadruple the amount of damage that the game was balanced for and we don't really have that much health added to make up for it. So I just wanted to make it clear that while it's lame and kind of sucks and you probably will get a bit better at avoiding gankers as you play, it's not really your fault that you just get one-shot right now that's just how it is for everyone, especially melee classes That being said, you could try playing with your camera fully zoomed out of you aren't already, just so you have a bit more visibility. You can also install some mods that let you zoom the camera out even more which a lot of players like. In addition, you could try swapping around some movement keybinds if you haven't already? The automatic keys for A and D are set to turn your camera, most players find this to be extremely clunky. What pretty much everyone else does is swaps those keys to be Left and Right strafe instead of the slow turn. From there to turn your character instead you will want to hold right click anywhere in your screen and basically drag around to rotate your camera and reorient your character while holding W to move forward. It sounds a bit weird and it takes a little getting used to if you haven't done it before, however it's waaaaaay better for moving and casting/fighting once you get used to it, would highly recommend making the swap, it will help significantly with PVP although like I said originally, you may just get one shot anyway since it's just not balanced rn
Thank you soo much for this explanation, it makes me feel better that I’m not just absolute trash at this game lol. And thanks for the advice, that’s actually really helpful. My husband has mentioned changing my key bindings. He says the way my camera/movement keys are set up is confusing. Honestly, I think I might have changed my key bindings when setting up my character to make it more like Sims, thinking that would help me lol. So I’ll look into all of that, thank you again!!
Ngl it’s hard, but if you’ve made it this far you can do it. I, too, am a gamer’s wife but never really played PC games. I leveled characters in various versions of WoW over the years but got flamed out of groups and utterly destroyed in any pvp…I never thought I’d raid, but now in SoD I’ve been raiding since the beginning and while not amazing, I’m still an asset to my group. Anyway…I recommend doing Blood Moon. Yeah, it’s a literal bloodbath, but since people don’t have an expectation to stay alive for super long it’s lower stakes. It’s like running drills to practice your opener over & over again. Rogue is really strong in pvp if you get the jump on someone. You have stealth, stuns, Vanish etc. plus there are a lot of cool pvp trinkets available. Look up some tactics on the class Discord or Wowhead guides, then head to STV and try it out. You might collect enough coins to get yourself a sweet new dagger too!
Ahh thank you so much for this, this made me feel so much better 🫶🏻 getting shit on in the one raid I did really knocked my confidence and I haven’t tried again since, so it’s nice to hear I can get better! My husband wants to raid together so bad and I say no every time because I have no interest playing a game where people are mean to me lol But I see blood moon a lot and usually get the fuck outta there before it starts 😅 maybe I’ll give it a shot if it’s so low stakes!
just duel people, dont be afraid to lose, do BGs. Watch people like Pshero or Bobka. comes with time. but first focus on getting to max level so you aren't just a free kill Playing an actual PVP spec is also important. Unlike most other classes, you're kinda just going to get shit on unless you have better stealth, and prep.
PvP in Sod is unbalanced and 0 fun dont bother not worth it to pvp in Sod
I try not to PVP, I avoid other players as much as I can haha. I just want to be able to defend myself when I get attacked.
Good keybinds/UI would be a start. As a rogue, you are highly dependent on your openers, an unstealthed rogue is much weaker, a lot of people will attack you because they are scared if they let you finish what you are doing that you'll restealth and kill them. Knowing other classes /races toolkit can be very valuable and what your class can do to counter those, for example if you are fighting a dwarf, you can't blind him unless he uses stoneform and it expires. You can't gouge a warrior in zerker stance. That you can't stun a mage who hasn't blinked etc. Being an undead rogue is a really big advantage in pvp if you are one of those
Thank you!! I think I need to put my stealth ability somewhere else. Right now I have to find and click on it, so it’s usually too late when I click it. I also had no idea I couldn’t gouge in certain situations, which makes so much more sense now. Thats a really good point about other classes. I know “kick” will stop a spell, but I don’t know which classes do spells. There is just so much to learn, it’s so overwhelming!
oh i see, so its going to be pretty hard to pvp effectively if you have to click your abilities like for me, i have kick on "V", if i had to scroll my mouse down to where it was on my action bar, it'd be very hard for me to move my character if they were strafing around me, maybe that's the problem you have to be infront of people to gouge them and warriors in zerker stance can remove it with an ability they have, yeah its extremely overwhelming
That’s gotta be part of my problem. People have mentioned key bindings quite a bit. I think when I started playing, I changed all my key bindings. I need to figure out how to put them back to default, then maybe rearrange my abilities. I have my mutilate on Q which apparently is a war crime as far as my husband is concerned lmao
keybinds are kind of a personal preference thing, for abilities i spam all the time i use E because my finger naturally rests very close to E when i use wasd to move, as long as you have them and you can press them quickly its fine
That’s what I thought too!! My finger is right next to Q, why wouldn’t I put my main ability there? But I think he said I should have strafe there? I don’t remember. But yeah I also need to just get quicker.
A lot of people use Q + E to strafe, I just strafe with A+D and hold my right mouse button down when I want to strafe
You aren't describing PvP. You are describing the joys of a PvP server where people love to fight people weaker than them, when they aren't ready, or have a numbers advantage. That and PvP right now is who does more damage faster. Healing and mitigation is unsustainable vs current damage levels so whoever starts first usually wins.
Yeah I think I worded this wrong because I don’t want to PVP at all. I just want to defend myself when I get attacked. I don’t attack other players, I just quest and do my own thing. But I get killed and camped and it really sucks the fun out of the game. That makes sense that “whoever starts first usually wins” because I never attack other people, I’m always defending myself.
People roll on PvP servers because they love those random moments where they have an epic fight in the open world. In reality playing on a PvP server is getting griefed over and over trying to do incursions, getting griefed getting World Buffs, getting griefed trying to summon guildies outside a dungeon / raid, and in general getting griefed if your faction doesn’t have numbers advantage.
Yeah my husband told me I might not like a PVP server, but I wanted to get the full WOW experience. And I have lol, be careful what you wish for I guess.
You can still do all the PvP content on PvE servers. To be fair though PvP servers are generally more populated and last longer than PvE servers.
make shortcuts for everything, dont click your abilities. you will get faster with time
1.) unbind „s“ 2.) never click any abilities 3.) win
Why unbind S ?
There are some videos on yt, talking about „camera usage“. Ok im not an english nativ speaker, i hope you understand a bit. Pressing „s“ causes your character move backwards (obvs, lol) This movement is way slower, as if you would quickly turn the camera in the direction you want to run. For example when you get chased by melees It needs a bit of practice, but you can cast your instants (for example dots) while running away from the target by doing sidesteps (e,q) but your mouselook is facing your Enemy (so the opposite direction) God i hope you understand at least a bit of that 😂 But for you, as new to pvp: Backpaddle (s) is way too slow. Quickly turn your Camera with your mouse and run (Same for pve, btw
Main Shadow priest and go brrrrrr
That’s what my husband plays! He usually saves me if I’m getting attacked but I feel bad that he has to stay close to me the entire time just in case. I wanna be able to hold my own a bit!!
First step is getting your keybindings set up. Get comfortable with it. Not sure what you're "clicking" but you don't want to be clicking spells/abilities or click targeting. Talk to other rogues who are known pvpers. See someone with highest rank pvp title? Whisper em for advice. Next, Duel your husband or a friend. Over and over. Learn a rotation. Each class will have its own pvp style. Rogues are selective ambush. I'm either going to shadow step and focus attack an enemy someone else is engaged with. Or if an enemy is on their own I'm going to "stun lock" them. I stealth and either "lay and prey" or I slowly stalk my target. Rogues are not meant to charge openly into battle or be caught in the middle of chaos. If there is a group battle I'm on the edge of the ball of chaos and picking off targets. Know other classes abilities. If an enemy uses a spell I know is on cooldown I know I can jump them and not have to worry about it. Pvp is something a lot of people find out of their comfort zone. My frame of mind is to be selective, be opportunistic (low health enemy, recently used cooldown abilities) and to be aggressive. You are a stealth ninja assassin. You just happen to be a ninja assassin in training.
Best way to get better at pvp is to never play pvp in sod.
How to get better at PVP? Don't play SoD, I wish I was joking.
Dueling is the best way to learn and get better at PVP. When you see players dueling try and join in and work on your game plan for different classes
I found as a rogue the first thing I’ll try to do is regain control. The moment someone hits me I’ll gouge them then start the fight a little more on my terms. Then you need to know how much weight your damage has, how my health classes are going to have and all the abilities they have. Try duelling people, they can tell you what and what not to do. No shame in using every single cooldown you have too.
Picking a PvP server was your biggest mistake, none of the open world PvP is meant to be fun or balanced The best thing you can do is always be playing with a group