One Rogue's Journey

I had a completely different post I was planning for today until I woke up to this question:

Hey zaltu, i got a questions about pvp. Does hit rating mean anything/much in it? More specifically, my hit rating is going to be down in the 40-50s if i give up Sphere of Red Dragon’s Blood for Medalion of the Horde . Is it worth it? I’m assuming the answer is yes, but i need a semi-expert opinion.

First off, great question. The quick answer is that no, hit rating doesn’t mean as much in PvP as it does in PvE (nor do you need as much of it as you would for Bosses since players are level 80 and bosses are level 83) but it is still important.

For PvP, your “yellow” or special hit cap (Mutilate, Ambush, Eviscerate, etc) assuming no precision(most PvP builds will not have this) is 167. You should be aiming for this number because a missed finisher can be the difference between getting that kill and them receiving that heal they so desperately needed.

Allow me to give you a quick run down of the kind of stat numbers you should be aiming for, but please have your salt shakers ready because these are very loose and in PvP nothing is set in stone.

• Resilience – 500+
• Hit – ~167
• Crit – 30%+
• AP – 3000+

In direct answer to the question about your two trinkets, use the Medallion regardless of how much hit you lose. The PvP trinket is a must for serious PvP play (you might do fine in some BGs but you can’t live without it in the arena). That being said, there are some new PvP Trinkets from Wintergrasp that are just awesome; one even has a large amount of hit-rating: Titan-forged Rune of Accuracy.

Below is a list of easy to obtain (they only cost Honor) PvP items that have hit on them (Note: I’ve linked the Hateful versions but the Deadly versions should no longer have Arena Rating requirements either):

• Hateful Gladiator’s Cloak of Victory
• Hateful Gladiator’s Pendant of Victory
• Deadly Gladiator’s Ring of Victory

I hope that answers your question, enjoy your PvPing!

Have a question you need answered? Leave a comment or drop me a line.

Good morning all. How are your weeks going? I, for one, hate Noblegarden. It’s the worst holiday yet because all of the achievements involve running around in a circle picking up eggs that only drop 1 chocolate. Only one??? That’s nuts considering if you’re unlucky you’ll need about 200+ to get everything you need. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it and it should die.

Last Week’s Results

• Dailies

I didn’t manage to get them done everyday, sometimes I just don’t have time before the raid and I certainly don’t feel like doing dailies afterward. Plus, I’m really starting to dislike the Argent Tournament Dailies.

• PvP

I got a number of Arena matches done on both my 2v2 (Rogue-Mage) and my 3v3 (Rogue-Mage-Priest) finishing up at 517 and 564 rating respectively. I feel like we’re doing really well for our first time out, but I’d like to see us up the number of games we play in a week.

This Week’s List

• PvP

Arena. Arena. Arena. Arena. Try to crack 1000 rating in one (if not both) of the teams.

• Blog-Related

I really want to get a new video done. This week I’m thinking ArkInventory.

What’s everyone else up to this week? Also, don’t you think Noblegarden sucks?

Happy Friday my friends. How was your second week of 3.1? On a scale of 2 to 14, I’d say mine was an 11. Ulduar is kinda tough but I love it for that reason. Time to answer some questions.

Thanks for taking the time to write up the leveling guide – it makes
it much easier to figure out what’s going on with rogues.

I do have one question however; as i’m leveling up (and I am still
very low level) I will periodically add a weapon enchant as the mood
strikes. What type is best for a leveling rogue? I recently put a +15
agi on my sword and realized afterwards that perhaps a dmg one or proc
one would be better.

I’m not really sure you need enchants on your weapons as you’re leveling. To me, it seems like a waste of money since while they do help you will often replace your weapons quickly as you level. The exception to this would be the heirloom weapons. Crusader or +15 agi on those at level 1? Now you’re talking.

With the recent changes to poisons now being based on PPM, do you think that the choices rogues make for poisons changes? Or do you still suggest going with the WP/DP combination? (Presuming slow MH and fast OH)

For Combat and HAT, you want to do WP/DP with a slow MH and a fast OH. For Mutilate you also want a slow MH and a fast OH but you want to go IP/DP

What’s your rotation?

My rotation hasn’t changed in 3.1 The rotation I laid out in this post still holds true.

Agility or Attack Power?

There is no right answer here, they are both so close. If you absolutely want to min/max completely, then check a spreadsheet. You really can’t go wrong with either.  That said – me likey agility.

How much haste and how much hit should i have? or what would you req?

You should be trying to hit the poison hit cap (237 with precision and Misery/Improved Faerie Fire) but don’t gimp your other stats by over gemming for it. Haste is a good stat but I don’t believe there is a set amount you “must” have. I think you’ll find that as you get gear you’ll have a lot of haste without even trying. That said, don’t gem for it, gem for Agi or AP.

I don’t know if you answered this in a previous post but could you talk a little bit about what types of weapons to use for the specs you posted as well as what poisons on each of the hands? I found your glyph section to be very helpful and wanted to see if you had any other advice.

Basically, you should use the best weapons you have available. If you have good daggers you should go Mutilate and use them. For combat, if you have decent swords go ahead and use them but the fact of the matter is that right now there aren’t any great swords and only a few decent ones. Your best bet for combat (and HAT) is going to be a slow fist in the main hand and a fast dagger in the off hand.

Also, I’ve seen some discussion on armor penetration for PVE and PVP. Could you also talk a bit on this subject as well? Thank you very much and I love the site.

Armor penetration is a weird stat in that it gets better the more you have. It is for this reason that Grim Toll is considered the best combat trinket because the proc rate is so high and the amount of armor pen it gives you is ridiculous. That said, I don’t believe you can get a lot of value out of it by gemming for it.

I don’t really want to get into the numbers behind it but this post: http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/04/19/ghostcrawler-on-the-mechanics-behind-armor-penetration/ does a good job of laying out what the crab said.

Alright, hopefully I managed to answer a majority of the questions I’ve been asked a lot since 3.1 dropped. Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Have a question? Leave a comment or drop me a line.

See what I did there? Rhyme. I am some kinda wordsmith. I’m not here to talk about my mastery of the English language though – no, I am here to talk about Ulduar.

Ulduar is not easy. Yes, the place has been cleared and a few guilds have even taken down some hard modes but still.

Ulduar is not easy.

It is time to put on your “A” game folks. Luckily for you, I, Zaltu, have some tips and tricks (see what I did there?) for you as you progress through this not so easy (but very cool) new dungeon. These tips will use specific examples up into Kologarn because that’s what I’ve seen but many of the concepts can be applied to later bosses (and really any boss). Let’s do this thing.

Cloak

Cloak of Skill Shadow. Oh how I love you.  Without you, without you everything just falls apart, without you it’s not as much fun to pick up the pieces. Nine Inch Nails references aside, Cloak is one of the best tools in our arsenal and the best rogues use it to make their lives easier and the healers love us (or love us more in my case). Let’s look at some examples from our new playground, Ulduar.

1. Ignis’ Flame Jet

This ability causes a large amount of initial damage and then a rather nasty DOT to the entire raid. You, however, are a rogue and if you pop Cloak right before the jet goes off you will take…wait for it…ZERO damage. This is (including the initial and the DOT) ~24-25k of healing that can be saved for one of the other poor non-cloak-having raiders (like the tank for example). You won’t be able to cloak out of every Jet but you should make it a point to cloak out of everyone you can.

2. XT’s Light and Gravity Bomb

So this is a very familiar mechanic (and a great one for determining who in your raid can’t pay attention to even simple things). You get a debuff, now run away from everyone else. Unfortunately XT is a DPS race and running away causes you to lose time on target which is less than ideal (of course if you stayed in and killed the rest of the melee that probably wouldn’t be looked too kindly on either). Luckily for you, you can cloak out of both of these debuffs. If you’re unlucky you might still have to run out but generally you’ll only get targeted once or twice a fight.

Feint

Remember back in December when I said the changes to Feint were going to make it useful? Well it appears that once again my predictive powers were right on the money. For those of you unfamiliar, this is what the new highest rank of Feint does:

It also does a small reduction in threat that is so small as to be absolutely useless. Now, when this was first released (3.0.8) it was widely considered not so useful and the reason for that is that most of the Area of Effect attacks in the current raid content were avoidable and, as such, should have been..well..avoided. Enter Ulduar and unavoidable raid-wide damage.

1. Ignis’ Flame Jet

Remember how earlier I said you can’t cloak out of all the flame jets? Well, when you can’t cloak, feint. Timed right, you can save yourself from taking about 8k worth of damage and again, that’s 8k worth of healing that can go to somebody else.

2. XT’s Tantrum

This spell hits everyone in the raid for 10% of their health every second for 12 seconds. So, basically, it is guaranteed death if you don’t do something. Cloak won’t help us here but feint will. Pop Feint right after the first tick of tantrum for the maximum effectiveness and – voila! – suddenly 12 ticks of 10% of your health becomes 6 ticks of 10% and 6 ticks of 5%. You’re still going to need some healing if you weren’t topped off but it takes some significant pressure off the healers during a rather heavy raid healing fight.

The Tank

The tank is your friend too. He gets hit in the face so you can stab in the back.

1. Razorscale’s Adds

So you have a nice Tricks of the Trade rotation going with the other rogue in the raid. That’s great, as long as you two are doing comparable DPS it’s a net gain for our fair city raid. Put that button aside for a bit because the adds on Razorscale need heavy AOE and with a little help from your Tricks and Fan of Knives you can make sure that AOE can happen just a little bit quicker, which means they go down quicker and the tanks take less damage and the healers use less mana and so on and so on…everybody wins.

2. Kologarn

This one is really simple. Stand on the tank and you won’t get targeted by the eyebeam. Spell casters can’t do this because they will get interrupted and thus spell locked but you can and thus all you have to do is DPS your little heart out.

I hope you all are enjoying Ulduar. I for one am relishing the challenge.

Side Note: I’ve gotten a lot of email’s with questions lately and I’m doing my best to answer them all, tomorrow I’m planning a marathon “Ask Zaltu” post that will attempt to answer as many questions as possible.

Monday, Monday, Monday. Is there any greater day of the week? Well, Saturday…and Friday, even Sunday…and probably Tuesday…Thursday isn’t too bad…you know what, forget I said anything.

First week of patch 3.1 and Zaltu gives it two big undead thumbs up. There are a few problems (a lot of which I expect to get resolved in whatever small fixer-upper patch we get tomorrow) but as far as I’m concerned things are going well in the World of Warcraft.

Arena Season 6 starts tomorrow (I believe) and this will be the first season where I give this whole arena thing a try. I will most definitely be running a 2v2 with my friend, the angry frost mage (AFM) and probably be running a 3v3 with him and our pocket disc priest. With this in mind AFM and I spent nearly all of Saturday running skirmishes to get our feet wet (this proved to be particularly annoying as the join as group feature appears to be completely borked, fun stuff). In short, it was a soul crushing experience but an enjoyable one still if that makes any sense. It’s a challenge and not one from which I plan to back away.

No results for last week because I didn’t post a list last week! What? I was on vacation dammit.

This Week’s List

• Dailies

Dalaran Fishing and Argent Tournament. Do them everyday. It can be tough to squeeze them in before the raid but I really want to start moving ahead in the tournament.

• PvP

Do at least 10 Arena matches on whichever teams end up getting formed. More importantly, learn something from each match. I should probably keep some sort of written record of that stuff…hmm…

What’s everyone else up to this week? Are you enjoying 3.1?

Happy Friday my friends! As promised, I’m right in the swing of things with another video. Since the promised equipment manager never made it into 3.1 I thought it would be a good time to do a video on…wait for it…an equipment manager mod! Clever idea huh? I’m not just a pretty face you know.

So, enjoy, ClosetGnome! (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/closet-gnome.aspx)

So 3.1 went live yesterday and despite the fact that it took a little too long for the servers to come up, I think it was a big success.

Yesterday I received a lot of emails and comments with questions about the specs and glyphs for Rogues in 3.1 so I decided to wrap them up in a nice big post for you. Aren’t I swell?

Spec

Well, yesterday I went over the specs for both Combat and Mutilate. Check that post out for more info.

A commenter on that post brought up the question of specing into Vile Poisons for Combat. Here is the build he is referring to: 18/51/2. First things first, this build is viable but I don’t like it. The first reason being that while it is very close to other combat builds right now, it is not believed to scale as well as the other builds, and will most likely be outpaced. Secondly, and far more importantly, I hate giving up points in Relentless Strikes. RS, to me, is a staple talent because of the amount of cycle-stability that extra energy provides you.

It was brought to my attention that I neglected HAT. I won’t lie to you, I’m not a HAT expert.  It just doesn’t interest me that much to try out, however, I am aware that there are rogues out there that enjoy it and that it can be competitive. So, with that in mind, I present my attempt at a HAT spec(3/24/44) and a link to the EJ forum thread which discusses HAT in far more detail than I ever could. Side Note: Looking over that build a few times I can’t help but think that I’m really onto something, but someone with more experience should be able to tell me I’m crazy though.

Glyphs

This was another popular question yesterday (what with the new patch bringing some actual choice into the matter).

Glyphs – Combat:

Sinister Strike
Rupture
Slice and Dice OR Adrenaline Rush OR Tricks of the Trade

The glyph of Sinister Strike is still an absolute must. No ifs, ands, or buts there.

As well, I still strongly believe that the Glyph of Rupture is a great addition and highly recommend that you keep using it.

The third slot is where things get a bit tricky and you really start to find some differing opinions.

The pre-3.1 staple, Glyph of Slice and Dice is still a solid choice (and my current) but as gear levels increase it seems that it is becoming easier and easier to maintain a solid rotation without it.

Glyph of Killing Spree has a following due to the very decent buff KS got this patch. I, however, find that KS is still too dangerous to use in some situations and thus not worth Glyphing.

Glyph of Fan of Knives has been talked about since it was such a huge chunk of our trash damage previously but let me tell you, after only one night in Ulduar, the game has changed. Pass on this.

Glyph of Adrenaline Rush(Note: the wowhead tooltip is currently wrong, this glyph does not decrease the cooldown but rather increases the duration by 5 seconds) seems like a pretty solid deal now that AR is only on a 3 minute cooldown and may get used more than once a fight, in fact, if(when?) I drop my glyph of SnD, AR will be my choice.

Now, Glyph of Tricks of the Trade is definitely being talked about.  It’s  particularly of use when rogues use Tricks on each other. This is a solid strategy (and one I employ) but I’m not completely sold on the glyph at the moment. I wouldn’t fault anyone for using it, but just make sure the other rogue is returning the favor by also glyphing for it.

Glyphs – Mutilate

Glyph of Mutilate
Glyph of Hunger For Blood
Glyph of Rupture OR Tricks of the Trade

Mutilate and Hunger For Blood are the obvious choices. The third slot could have a little leeway, either picking up Rupture, Slice and Dice or Fan of Knives but, as I stated earlier, I don’t really care for the Fan of Knives glyph and you really shouldn’t have a problem keeping Slice and Dice up as Mutilate so, in my opinion, Rupture is another obvious choice. As discussed above, Tricks is also a solid choice.

Glyphs – HAT

See, I didn’t forget you guys this time! While, again, I’m not a HAT expert there really aren’t a lot of glyphs out there for you, so your choices are pretty simple.

Glyph of Eviscerate
Glyph of Tricks of the Trade
Slice and Dice

*Deep Breath* Yes indeed, it would seem that the times they are a changing and the new world can be big and scary. But don’t be scared, you have the loving, caring (and handsome) Zaltu here at your side. Questions? Concerns? Love notes? Leave a comment or drop me a line.

P.S. Check out the Argent Tournament, it’s fun.

I’m back, baby. After an excellent vacation I’m back just in time for patch 3.1. And look at that, it’s dropping today, April 14th, just like I said it would.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Zaltu, you’re so awesome and handsome and you picked the day of the patch perfectly, what other great thing can you do for me?”

Well I’m glad you asked!  I’m going to supply you with some nice patch day specs for my stabby brethern and sistern. Let’s check it out, shall we?

PvE – Combat

15/51/5

Not a lot of changes here except that Lightning Reflexes is now so useful that you can no longer viably spec into both sword/dagger and fist. Sad, I know. Currently you have only one “free floating” point in this spec. I choose Endurance – but Throwing Specialization is also a popular choice.

PvE – Mutilate

51/13/7

The big change to the Mutilate build is the taking of Master Poisoner instead of Turn the tables. The reason for this is that previously Master Poisoner only provided a buff to crit that was usually provided by other classes which made it a relatively easy talent to skip, but now, with it’s increased chance to apply Deadly Poison after an Envenom, it’s a must have.

PvP – Mut/Prep

41/5/25

A few things worth noting with this build is that there is really no set-in-stone “this is the best Mut/Prep build”. This is the build I like to use. Some variations include replacing Initiative with Serrated Blades and/or replacing Find Weakness with Ruthlessness.

PvP – Shadow Dance

12/0/57

I’ll be honest with you here, I have yet to try this spec but it really has my attention. Likemost PvP specs where there’s not a 100%, this is the right spec. What I’ve linked is my best approximation after doing some research and looking over the armories of some of the best PvP rogues in the game currently.

Enjoy patch 3.1!

Happy Friday everyone. So, no video this week, I just didn’t have a chance to get around to it with all the excessive drinking and Rock Band I’ve been playing on my vacation. I should get back into the swing of things next week, though with Patch 3.1 likely to drop on the 14th Ulduar might be grabbing my full attention. Perhaps a video from inside there eh? We shall see.

But for today I have a pretty nice like macro for you: Spammable Sap. This bad boy will target the nearest enemy player and sap them.

This is best used in a situation wherein you’d like to sap anyone quickly. Defending the flag room in WG for example or just anywhere you’d like to just gank the first person you can get a hold of that is running by.

Enjoy your weekend and make sure you do everything you can to get ready for 3.1 (it’s coming!).

So, no 3.1 today. Not too surprising considering the Noblegarden delay. Just remember, that when it drops on the 14th I’m still right. So with 3.1 right around the corner I figured I’d take the time to answer some questions regarding how to best prepare yourself.

Let’s do this thing.

While I understand the ideal setup come 3.1 will be Calamity’s Grasp/Webbed Death with 5 pts in CQC…what about suggestions for those of us who may not be able to get those before 3.1…or ever get em for that matter?

BTW – I love your site!

This is a great question. You’re right everyone, myself included, does seem guilty of falling into the pattern of repeating the best setup and calling it a day.

This is an issue I’m currently struggling with myself as I am using a Fist/Sword setup. I’ve been doing some reading over on EJ and tweaking with my spreadsheet to try to decide what to do. This is what I’ve come up with:

Don’t skip the points in Lightning Reflexes. The 10% haste is just too good to pass up. That said, you’re going to need to find yourself a good offhand dagger. According to my sheet a Librarian’s Paper Cutter is a stronger choice than Hailstorm (the best offhand sword currently available) when I can only put 1 point into Sword Spec. LPCs are currently rather cheap on the AH just keep checking into you can find one.

That being said, it is certainly not the end of the world if you have to use a sword in your off hand once Ulduar hits but if you can grab yourself a dagger (Webbed Death if you’re lucky, LPC otherwise) do so.

Lots of questions in this next one so I’m going to answer them as it goes.

Im glad to see we agree on the glyphs and the weps for a fist rogue. Calmaity’s Grasp and Webbed Death. as well as the 2ss/ 5cp Rupture/ 5cp Envenom. gots to love th 9.5 K envemons

Interesting side note, I actually don’t use envenom as Combat, preferring to go Wound/Wound with Eviscerate. While I will be going Wound/Deadly come 3.1 due to the increase in DP damage as well as the T8 2-piece I’m still not sure I’ll be using Envenom, time will tell on that one.

My question is this. Basically the priority of the stats in a build im working on and looking to equip for.

If so do i continue to stack haste? or do i switch and start picking up armour penitration or more AP?

It’s an interesting concept that’s for sure. I wonder mostly where you get that soft cap of 400 number. The current hit caps for Rogues with 5/5 Precision are 99/315/722 (Yellow/Poison/White) so 315 is the number I believe you are looking for.

On to your question about stacking haste. I’m not sure that I would. You’re going to have plenty of haste from gear and I believe you’ll get more benefit out of gemming/enchanting for AP or Agility.

Attack power ( AP ) is a 10 to 1 ratio. (as far as i know) meaning that for every 10 points of AP you get 1 point of DMG. ( Is there an AP cap ? )

This is not quite right. According to WowWiki, every 14 Attack Power is worth 1 DPS. There is no AP cap.

Haste rating every 100 points of haste = tenth of a second subtracted from the wep speed. (i do not know the haste cap and if you know what it is i would be grateful if you told me)

Again, this is not exactly true. Haste Rating is calculated as such:

So, taking my main hand speed (2.6) and my haste rating (430) you get:

Which rounds up to 2.3.

Now watch the numbers as I add 100 haste rating at a time. At 530 haste rating, my weapon speed becomes 2.24, at 630 is becomes 2.18 and at 730 is becomes 2.12.

As you can see, there is not a “haste cap” exactly but since haste is percentage based and the amount of speed gained from increasing haste decreases as you add more it would certainly bottom out at some point.

Check out my Haste Calculator.

I do not know the break down for Armour Penetration. If you could help me with this I would be grateful. i have looked at sites and its like reading a foreign language. plain English would help

Armor Pen is a bit complex and I haven’t had to opportunity to really analyze it considering the new 3.1 changes. That said, while it will become a better stat, it will still be one of our weakest.

What I need to know is know that I have achieved the soft cap what should stack? which gives the greatest DPS increase?

As always, you should consult a spreadsheet for final numbers but the general consensus is that stacking AP is best with Agility being so close that no one would bat an eye if you choose that.

Last thing. I have Darkmoon card: greatness and the mirror. would you swap out the mirror for greatmoon card death? It reads that everytime you do dmg it has a chance to proc do you know if this applies to DP ticking as well?

Ashenku- Eonar server

No, while the Death card isn’t terrible it is just not as strong as either the Greatness card or the Mirror. I do believe that DP ticks count towards the proc but I don’t believe they will give you any more procs than your simple white attacks due to the internal cooldown.

Got a question you just have to have answered? Leave a comment or drop me a line.