I am one of the 4% of Scouts, (although not on this chart becuase I only plotted during this time).
The problem with rogue from my point of view (as someone who's main'ed rogue since 2008-ish) is that what had been fun about Rogue isn't as fun anymore. Without an effect that has an extremely strong possibility of taking someone down in a single hit, you can't play the extreme waylay game ("Nearly Certain Death Is My Mini-Game"). I'm still doing the run-by combat strafes, which does require OOG speed and situational awareness to make work, but most of my big hits are getting to be parried or dodged or evaded, so I can't take the risks I use to to try to waylay the Big Bad in the midst of their minions, since I don't have anything that works as a takedown.
I absolutely love Sleep/Paralysis Blow, while I lament waylay being gone, I was also one of the people who pushed for its removal at symposium.
No more arguments about people saying they saw me, or they knew I was there, or that I didn't hit them on the shoulder blade. Now you just call the skill and it resolves. Now I can affect Undead and other no metabs with a hard take out. It's really a work horse for me.
I used it a ton, while I only have 3, they generally land. If you're finding your defenses are always being called to your skills, I'd encourage you to talk to your plot team. 2.0 is a significant change in stating, and if you stat monsters for 1.3, you can really ruin the dynamic.
I had a similar talk about rogue stuff and defenses at a game I played, and I found that once the team started considering rogues in their equation, life got a bit better.
Doom Blow is sad as a capstone, especially when sitting next to United Blow. United Blow better supports the old-style riskier play because you have more spells than you get Assassinates and can afford to throw three or four at a single enemy without that being the only thing you are killing today. (My personal suggestion for a fix would be to add a capstone ability that lets paralysis/sleep strikes swing as Arcane instead of Weapon if you first spend ten seconds within weapon range staring at both of someone's shoulder blades, but I got the sense that this change in play style was on purpose so my hopes aren't high.)
That's a cool idea. No other skills work like that, and I get what you're going for.
I don't have a problem with the weapon carrier, and I think Arcane will force some teams to start adding more of the bad defenses, i.e. phase or immunity to doom since they won't be able to deal with this in another when they're flat caught. Folks are still particularly attached I think to their boss characters but, Immunity to doom is a horrifying thing on a card.
I'm really just a fan of Weapon Doom for this. Or scrapping the doom concept all together and going back to the drawing bored.
Do Rogues really need a doom effect? Fighter's no longer have a -1 move, and against my better judgement, it largely turned into a not a big deal.