One Rogue's Journey

Ah, it’s good to be back. I’ve been out of town and as you may or may not have noticed there was no Friday Morning Macro last week. Did you miss it? I know I did. There’s a chance there won’t be one this week do to my taking another trip out of town…what? I’m allow to have a life…just kidding, I don’t really, I’ll be back to my normal posting schedule after this week, I promise*. There may even be a special surprise coming up for the new year. Stay tuned.

Once again, the airport proved to be a terrible place to be. I tried to follow my own advice and take a zeppelin but apparently they don’t really have those for normal flight. I asked why the goblins hadn’t implemented them into modern society but apparently goblins “don’t exist”. Weird. Personally, I think it is some sort of conspiracy against me (most things are).

Last Weeks Results

• Achievements

My only goal for last week was to pick up the Merrymaker achievement and the “awesome” title that goes with it. Bow down before me and tremble, for I am Merrymaker

This weeks list

Nothing. I’m only going to be in town for about two nights of play so I’m not putting any pressure on myself to get anything done. My original thought was to get Exalted with the Sons of Hodir but I did that this morning (good riddance you smelly giants) so I think I’ve accomplished more than enough this week. Cop out? Maybe but…Hey look over there!

In other news, I’m working on my adds-on post and hope to have it up before I disappear on Wednesday. Are you excited? I’m excited. You should be excited.

One of my best friends is one of those silly, dress-wearing, spell-slinging, jerks that don’t have to deal with whirlwind ranged DPSers known as a Mage. I’ll keep him anonymous because he’s a big antisocial jerk who just likes killing things (one of the many reason we’re such good friends).

What does this have to do with anything? I’m glad you asked. Him and I are two of the biggest nerds you’ll ever come across and we love just talking numbers. As a mage he was constantly balancing and tweaking his gems and enchants as he got new gear so as not to go over the hit cap and “waste” a useful piece of stats. You see, it was often that he would tell me that once he gets this one piece of gear he’d then be “allowed” to use another piece that he’d been waiting on using but couldn’t because he’d lose too much hit.

You see, in The Burning Crusade rogues only had two hit caps, yellow and white, and it was very hard to get to the white hit cap (though you could do it with the right amount of Sunwell gear). In addition to this, there was so little gear with expertise on it that the expertise cap was just a number that you never really had to worry about. Because of all this, enchanting and gemming your rogue was simply a matter of putting on your latest piece of gear, getting it enchanted with the one “best in slot” enchant for its slot, throwing some +hit gems in there and calling it a day.

Things are different now.

Check out these table, straight from Elitist Jerk’s Pocket Guide:

Hit

Expertise

For starters there’s a lot more gear with expertise on it and most of it has a ton of it. In addition, you can gem and enchant for expertise now. More often than not, I see rogues with too much expertise. This is a waste and something that all rogues should look to correct.

Hit is a bit of a different story. The white hit cap (755) should basically be ignored. The number is so high that the value of hit diminishes greatly when you start to stack it over the poison cap. Unlike expertise, going over the poison hit cap is not a complete waste but if you’ve hit the cap you should take the opportunity to enchant or gem for Agility.

Gearing a rogue is a lot more interesting nowadays. We actually have a few caps to keep in mind and a number of different things we can enchant and gem for (haste, expertise, hit) to help round out our stats. The number-crunching nerd in me is very excited about all this.

In the near future, I plan to go over these new enchants and gems in greater detail. Any questions?

Happy Winter Veil
/bow

A good week overall despite the lack of eye-bleeding heroic runs. I got to run 10-man Naxx to its completion for the first time and I must say it was an enjoyable experience. The most fun came from the other rogue and I trying to kill each other on trash with some well timed Tricks. She started it. I swear. I picked up my T7 chest and a pretty nice sword (no more silly wooden hand puppet for me!). I really enjoy being a straight sword/sword rogue as the extra 4 talent points to put in Endurance and Improved Sprint make me happy in a way that’s weird and strangely confusing.

Last Week’s Results

• Leatherworking

I’m sitting at 439. What can I say? Arctic Fur is expensive and I’m bad at farming. Even the fact that I can sell leg armor for a decent amount can’t really get me out there. Soon though….soonish at least.

• Reputations

The slimy fish people think I’m a pretty cool guy. They gave me this neat egg. Like I said last week, the egg will hatch into the mount. That’s a promise you can take to the bank…just don’t expect them to do anything with it.

This Week’s List

• Achievements

Finish the Winter Veil Achievements (only two left). Cop out? Maybe…but I get a holiday vacation too damn it. Side note: This will be my first ever title. A lot of people find this title to be a bit silly (and it is) but that’s exactly why I’m going to use it. All shall tremble before the horror that is Merrymaker Zaltu. Are you trembling? Are you???

So, anyone else have any goals for the week, or are you planning on being lazy like me with the holidays as an excuse?

This is a wonderful little macro that’s been on my bar for longer than I can remember:

This baby will dismount you if you’re mounted, cast Vanish if you’re in combat and stealth otherwise. The first piece “[stealth] stealth” will keep you from vanishing when you’re stealthed in combat. Personally, I have this one bound to the back button on my mouse.

A question answered

I received a question yesterday regarding the subtlety raiding build. I’ve been avoiding talking about this build because its strength appears to come solely from the bugged nature of Honor Among Thieves (HAT). HAT is suppose to give you one combo point anytime someone in your group crits, however, it currently gives one combo point for every HAT rogue in your group. So, say you have three rogues spec’d for HAT in a group, someone crits and all three rogue receive 3 combo points. This is a known bug that will be addressed but it hasn’t been determined when. While I don’t recommend hanging your hat (pun intended, I’m so awesome) on a bug if you’re interested, here’s the spec.

Question? Macro request? Comment below.

Enjoy your weekend
/bow

There isn’t a whole lot to say about the glyphs in Wrath for rogues. Fact of the matter is, that for your raiding rogue there are 2 glyphs that absolutely must be used, no ifs ands or buts. Combat rogues have their third glyph set in stone as well while Mutilate rogues are left scratching their butts with those fast daggers of theirs.

Must Haves

• Glyph of Slice and Dice
• Glyph of Rupture

Slice and Dice and Rupture are the two key finishers of any rogue’s rotation and by extending the duration of them you give yourself some more elbow room in your rotation for one of the big Es (Eviscerate or Envenom). I strongly believe that these are a must have for any raiding rogue.

Combat

• Glyph of Sinister Strike

If you’re a combat spec’d rogue and you do not have this glyph you need to alt+tab right now, load up the game and get it. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Done? Good. You’ll thank me later. The extra combo points you gain are a blessing and I guarantee that once you’ve played with it you’ll wonder how you ever lived with out it.

Mutilate

Sorry champ, I really have nothing for you here. Don’t blame me though, blame Blizzard. There is just no third major glyph that lends itself to a Mutilate build. Glyph of Vigor seems alright, but I honestly haven’t seen very many Mutilate builds that even use Vigor. For now, all I can say is to pick one that tickles your fancy and then hope Blizz adds a Glyph of Mutilate or Glyph of Envenom sometime in the future.

Side Note: A Call For Requests

Have a topic you’d like me to discuss? Have a question about roguery or WoW in general you’d like answered? Have a macro idea you’d like to see written? Comment below and let me know! I’m a pretty friendly and helpful guy for a dirty thieving backstabber.

Ah the combat tree, how I love you. From my days as a silly dagger rogue (I still love backstab and would love to see Combat Daggers be viable…a man can dream can’t he?) to the current days in the icy north I’ve been spec’d some variety of combat. While Mutilates may be the cool new guy on the block with his slick hair cut, fancy shoes and brooding attitude that makes all the ladies swoon, I am -for the time being- going to dance with who brought me and that’s the rush of Combat.

The Specs

Here are the current combat specs laid out by elitist jerks.

• Combat Swords
• 7/51/13
• 15/51/5
• Combat Fists – Combat Fist/Dagger
• 7/51/13
• 15/51/5
• Combat Fist/Sword
• 7/51/13
• 15/51/5

I’ve been seeing a lot of rogues using the 7/51/13 builds but personally I prefer the 15/51/5. I find that ruthlessness and lethality are just too good to pass up. Experiment and find out which one rubs you the right way.

At this point I’d like to mention that do to the changes to windfury and the current itemization of swords (the best mainhand available currently drops off of Naxx-25 trash), the sword/sword build is currently one of the weakest available. Currently the strongest weapon setup available is to main hand: Calamity’s Grasp and offhand: Webbed Death. Of course, this is simply based off current itemization and could will change when new items are introduced, for now, my best advice is to spec for the best weapons you currently have.

The Rotation

First off, pop tricks of the trade a few seconds before the pull. This will allow you to immediately begin burst damage on the boss.

If you happen to be in stealth lead off with Garrote. Personally, I rarely find myself starting a boss fight in stealth. The time lost moving to the boss just doesn’t seem worth it in my opinion.

Once you’ve begun attacking the boss, cast Bladeflurry (skip this step if there are other targets around that you shouldn’t be hitting) and then Adrenaline Rush. The ordering here is important, if you start with AR you’re wasting the 1.0 seconds from the GCD (global cooldown). Let me try to explain that a little better. Bladeflurry costs energy, AR does not. If you lead with AR you will be at full energy for the 1.0 seconds before you can do anything else, wasting the increased regeneration from AR for that time.

Next, Sinister Strike and then Slice and Dice.

Now, Sinister Strike up to 5 combo points.

Does Slice and Dice have >12 seconds left? If so, Rupture, otherwise Slice and Dice.

Sinister Strike up to 5 combo points.

Does Slice and Dice have >12 seconds left? Eviscerate or Envenom.

Repeat until the boss is dead.

Kick the boss for good measure.

Basically, just like in BC you need to make sure that Slice and Dice never drops. Your next priority is Rupture and after that you can sneak in an Eviscerate or an Envenom.

A good rule of thumb is to always Sinister Strike up to 5 combo points. If Slice and Dice has <12 seconds remaining, renew it. If Slice and Dice has >12 seconds and Rupture is not up (or only have 1 or 2 seconds remaining), reapply Rupture. If you’re set with both Slice and Dice and Rupture use the big E of your choice.

Hot Tip: If you find yourself very low on energy due to some bad luck with Combat Potency, try using Killing Spree for some extra DPS while you regen.

So, is anyone still Combat out there?

I had a relaxing week this week, taking a few of the weeknights off to catch up on that thing they call sleep. Verdict: it’s over-rated, turns out there is no such thing as rested-xp in real life.

Saturday was once again spent running as many heroics as possible and we managed to pick up a bunch of the special achievements. I’m currently sitting on 38 emblems and I think I’m set on saving up to pick up my T7 chest.

I got a weird desire on Sunday. I suddenly decided I wanted pets, a lot of pets. Using the excellent warcraftpets.com I went from 4 pets to 32. The RNG (random number generator) displayed its love for me yet again as it only took me 30 minutes to farm a crimson and dark whelping. Well, enough about my new fetish, let’s look at how I failed last week.

Last Week’s Results

• Lockpicking

I wasn’t vigilant with my picking of the Violet Hold door so I’m sitting at 399. One more pick of the door which I’ll do when next I log on and I’ll be done.

• Leatherworking

Sitting at 437 but boy does it hurt me to use all that artic fur.

• Reputations

I hit exalted with Wyrmrest and immediately ditched their ugly tabard and suck 1600 gold into a pretty red drake. It matches my black netherwing nicely.

I’m short on Sons of Hodir Revered by one quest, what can I say, I suck at finding Everfrost chips, don’t judge me. Stop judging me!

• Achievements

Things like this are where the term “epic fail” comes from. I barely spent anytime in Icecrown and certainly didn’t put a dent in grabbing up the Loremaster of Northrend achievement. What can I say, I apologize for nothing.

This Week’s List

• Leatherworking

LW to 440, no ifs, ands or buts…well…maybe a few buts, I’m only human undead.

• Reputations
• The Oracles

I want an egg, so I’ve made friends with some slimy fish people. I will have my first egg by this week and since the RNG (random number generator) loves me it will have the mount in it.

So those are my goals for the week, what are yours?

Ah poisons, not rogue should be without a stack of them all even if you never really use on particular type, I’m looking at you Anesthetic Poison. But do you really need to waste a space on your bars for every single poison? No, of course not. Wowwiki has an excellent section of Rogue Macros. A certain number of them are out of date and there is a lot to dig through but there is a nice gem in the center of it all:

This beautiful little macro will give you 4 poisons in a single button. Deadly when holding Ctrl, Crippling when holding Alt, Instant when holding Shift and Wound otherwise. As an added bonus it will automatically place the poison on your mainhand if you left click and on your offhand if you right click.

Happy Friday
/bow

Feint has always been one of those rogue abilities that most of my stabby brethren and I ignored. The tooltip says a “large amount” but it really didn’t reduce that much threat and for 20 energy it was a big waste. It’s not even on my action bars right now and I can’t think of a time it ever was.

That’s all about to change.

From the latest patch notes on the PTR for patch 3.08

Whoa…ow..damnit…sorry, I fell out of my chair. I’m better now, my butt hurts a little but I’m ok, thanks for asking. So, whoa…now we’re talking. Welcome to the game feint. With proper timing a clever rogue can really take some strain off of the healers (That reminds me, have you hugged your healer lately? You should.)

Now I just have to find a place for you on my bar, I can probably work out a spot next to Cloak of Skill.

Once you’re level 80 daily quests will become your second job your bread and butter when it comes to making money. In addition, even though championing is best and easiest way to push up a reputation (I recommend championing Wyrmrest, Kirin Tor or Argent Crusade first as they have the fewest dailies) you can grab a good bit of reputation from daily quests. Below is a guide that will allow you to make what I feel is the quickest route around Northerend while doing quests that provide the best reputation to go along with your money.

This guide assumes that you’re level 80 and you’ve done the quest chains in Storm Peaks and Icecrown to unlock the Sons of Hodir and Knights of the Ebon Blade dailies respectively. If you haven’t, well you should, because that’s an even better source of reputation and money.

I begin with the Sons of Hodir in Storm Peaks because I believe these are the most important quests to get done since you can’t champion them and you need the rep for your shoulder enchants.

Storm Peaks – Dun Niffelem

• Friendly
• Polishing the Helm: 13g 23s +250 Rep
• Hot and Cold: 13g 23s +250 Rep
• Blowing Hodir’s Horn: 13g 23s +250 Rep
• Honored
• Spy Hunter: 13g 23s +350 Rep
• Thrusting Hodir’s Spear: 16g 53s +500 Rep
• Revered
• Feed Arngrim: 13g 23s +500 Rep

This is a very nicely done set of quests. Start out by running to the west into the Valley of Ancient Winters. If you’re revered complete Feed Arngrim by using his tooth on the Roaming Jormungar.

When you’re done with that if you’re honored use the worg fang on the dead wrog corpse (you can’t miss it) and follow the ghost wolf around to complete Spy Hunters.

Once you’re finished with that hop in the cave a little bit to the west and north and kill Oozes for Polishing the Helm (100% drop rate!).

Head back into the valley and if you honored, use Hodir’s spear on one of the flying dragons to begin Thrusting Hodir’s Spear. This is a bit of a difficult quest but becomes much easier once you get the hang of it. There are some excellent strategies in the comments on Wowhead. My quick advice is to never let your grip fall below 20 and use your big attack (button 4) whenever it is up. Completing this quest will drop you right back in the center of Dun Niffelem, turn in your quests and head out the eastern exit.

The frozen lake contains Brittle Revenants which drop Essence of Ice which you need for Hot and Cold, kill them until you have 5. To the northeast there is a short path with some Seething Revenants. Use the essence of ice near the Smoldering Scraps (don’t stand too close, sometimes it won’t work) and then loot the Frozen Iron Scrap.

Hop on your flying mount and head north to Thunder Falls. Kill the mobs for Blowing Hodir’s Horn and use the horn on their corpse, easy enough. Return to Dunn Niffelem, turn in your quests, hop on your mount and point yourself towards Icecrown.

Grand Total: 81g 68s +1850 Reputation with the Sons of Hodir

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Icecrown – Orgrim’s Hammer(Horde)/Skybreaker(Alliance)

• Slaves to Saronite (Horde)/(Alliance): 13g 23s +250 Rep

Orgrim’s Hammer and Skybreaker are airships that fly around the northeastern area of Icecrown. There are a few other dailies on these ships but I skip them unless I really need the money or I’m looking for rep with my overall faction.

The cave you’re looking for is at 56,58 to the southwest. Enter, talk to the slaves until 10 are free and return to the ship.

Grand Total: 13g 23s +250 Reputation with Argent Crusade

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Icecrown – Shadowvault

• Vile Like Fire!: 13g 23s +250 Rep
• Leave Our Mark: 13g 23s +250 Rep
• Shoot ‘Em Up: 13g 23s +250 Rep

Fly southeast to Jotunhiem. All the mobs there count for Leave Our Mark so kill them at your leisure as you move around the area.

You can find the harpoon guns for Shoot ‘Em Up and the Dragons for Vile Like fire along the western edge of the village.

Vile Like Fire is extremely easy, hop on a dragon, fly near builds and push the fire button. Done and Done.

Shoot ‘Em Up is one of the most annoying quests you’ll come across. The best advice I can give you is be patient, don’t bother aiming for the dragons far away and follow the holy rule of all video games: “Instead of shooting where I was, you should have been shooting at where I was going to be“.

When you’re finished and good and frustrated head back to Shadowvault, turn in your quest and head south of Jotunhiem to Death’s Rise.

Grand Total: 39g 69s +750 with The Knights of the Ebon Blade

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Icecrown – Death’s Rise

• No Fly Zone: 13g 23s +250 Rep
• From Their Corpses Rise: 13g 23s +250 Rep
• Intelligence Gathering: 13g 23s +250 Rep

All these quests are completed in Onslaught Harbor to the west. Hop off your mount when you get there and get on your griffin. You don’t need to be on your griffin to kill the griffin riders but it helps.

Kill 10 of the riders (and use their corpses for From Their Corpses Rise).

You’ve probably gathered some Scarlet Onslaught keys at this point, use them on the trunks that are all around the harbor. If you run out of keys before you gather everything you need for Intelligence Gathering, simple kill any of the mobs around the harbor, they all drop keys.

When you finish, return to Death’s Rise to turn in your quest. Then point yourself south toward Coldarra.

Grand Total: 39g 69s +750 with The Knight of the Ebon Blade

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Borean Tundra – Coldarra

• Drake Hunt: 2g 40s +250 Rep
• Aces High!: 13g 23s +250 Rep

Drake Hunt is a level 71 quest so turn on Low Level Quest tracking to find it. If you don’t need the rep with Wyrmrest I recommend skipping this quest as the money is not very good and you can find better use of a daily slot. It is easy though, especially with a flying mount.

Fly into one of the hatchlings so it aggros, land, hit it with the spear and wait 25 seconds for it to become docile. Return it to the bubble.

Aces High is located high above the Nexus, I’m terrible at this quest so I refer you to the excellent comments on wowhead.

When you’re done, head east to Kaskala

Grand Total: 15g 63s +500 Reputation with Wyrmrest Accord

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Borean Tundra – Kaskala

• Preparing for the Worst: 4g 86s +500 Rep

Nothing fancy here, run around and grab the quest items, they’re all over the ground. The only issue might be competing with other players. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. What? People say that…shut up.

Head east to Moak’i Harbor when you’re done.

Grand Total: 4g 86s +500 Reputation with The Kalu’ak

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Dragonblight – Moa’ki Harbor

• Planning for the Future: 4g 86s +500 Rep

No objection to stealing babies? What about puppies? Good. Fly north and grab the pups, don’t use any AOE when you’re killing their parents (yes, that’s what this quest is about) or you’ll wipe them out too.

Head to Wyrmrest Temple when you’re done.

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Grand Total: 4g 86s +500 Reputation with The Kalu’ak

Dragonblight – Wyrmrest Temple

• Defending Wyrmrest Temple: 9g 96s +250 Rep

This is a fun and simple quest. Ride around on your dragon and kill the quest mobs, they’re everywhere.

Don’t forget to use renew as much as possible!

Fly to the west, to the bottom of the big purple tower of light and use the destabilize button (5), don’t move, wait for a few moments and the objective will complete.

Return to Wyrmrest then east to Kamagua.

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Grand Total: 9g 96s +250 Reputation with Wyrmrest Accord

Howling Fjord – Kamagua

• The Way to His Heart: 2g 40s +500 Rep

Easy quest. Grab fish from the pools near the isle of spears (34, 68) (get about 5-10) and run to the bulls (31, 74) use the fish to lead the bull to a cow.

Ta-da! Gross sea cow love.

Grand Total: 2g 40s +500 Reputation with The Kalu’ak

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Final Results

• 19 Daily Quests Done
• 212g
• 1850 Reputation with the Sons of Hodir
• 1500 Reputation with The Knights of the Ebon Blade
• 750 Reputation with Wyrmrest Accord
• 1500 Reputation with The Kalu’ak
• 250 Reputation with Argent Crusade

There you have it. Not a bad haul huh? Plus you still have a few daily quest slots left to use (I recommend the daily heroic of course).

Happy questing.
/bow