I returned to my computer to find myself with the no fly zone buff and just a second away from being dismounted. Oh well, I thought, I’ll just slow fall into the city, that where I wanted to be anyways. Well, due to awesome wind or fate (or perhaps the wind of

Needless to say, getting down caused me to splat right in the middle of the road. Poor Dalaran street sweepers. I wonder how many foolish adventurers they have to clean of their streets on a daily basis.

A Little History

Back in The Burning Crusade this was a laughable debate. Which was better? Who cares? Your rotation was Slice N Dice and Rupture and you almost never (outside of during an Adrenaline Rush) had the combo points to do anything else. Eviscerate was proven to be the better choice do to the lose of DPS from dropping off all your Deadly Poison stacks but the truth was that it didn’t really matter because you never really used either of them in an raid environment.

What’s Changed?

Short answer: A Lot! Poisons now scale with attack power (which is so friggin amazing) and Envenom got a bit of a rework. Envenom ignores the extra armor of bosses for a nice little damage boost. In addition, Envenom adds a 15% chance to poison your target for 1 second + 1 second per combo point used. With the new scaling of poisons with attack power, you can see how this would be beneficial. But why does this all matter? Have our rotations changed that much? Oh you bet they have. The increased duration from the Glyph of Slice N Dice and the Glyph of Rupture give us a lot more time to play with. Combat rogues have the Glyph of Sinister Strike hooking us up with some extra combo point love and Mutilate rogues (Assassination was already a combo point generating phenom) have the wonder that is Cut to the Chase. The fact of the matter is our rotations are no longer so set in stone and we have openings to use these other attacks, it’s an exciting time and the debate is raging on which of our 2 E’s are the best choice.

So Which Is It?

Well, there just hasn’t been enough time to come up with a 100% solid answer. A lot of modeling has been done with no definitive answer and we’ve yet to see just how well these abilities are going to scale with gear. The general consensus is that Envenom is the choice for Mutilate rogues due to the bonus chance to poison. Combat rogues are a bit trickier as it is very gear dependent and only a spreadsheet could tell you for sure one way or another.

On a side note, someone said to me that rogues were the bastard child of this expansion (OK, it was me, I talk to myself, what of it?). “What do you mean?” I asked myself. “Well, self, they buffed the DPS of all the classes with more utility and now we don’t provide utility or really out damage anyone significantly. Sounds pretty bastard-childy to me,” I said. “Well, self, you make a good point and you’re quite the good looking guy I might add, but I believe you’re missing a key point, rogue damage has traditionally been amazing when it comes to scaling with gear. I’m sure we’ll see our stabby brethren pulling ahead soon enough. Just be patient,” I responded to myself. “I guess that makes sense, and you’re not too bad looking yourself there pal.”

What a nice guy I am.

Until next time
/bow

Hope that helps some people, it certainly made my life easier.

Moving on then, when Wrath launched I took the opportunity to completely delete my Addons folder (it was a mess in there) and start from scratch. I’m pretty happy with what I came up with. It’s functional if not completely original.

I’ll go over in more detail the mods I used in a future post.

Side Note: The airport is a terrible place for terrible people. Next time I’m just going to take the zeppelin. On the plus side I saw a woman in a wizard’s robe, though it may have just been a really cool jacket. I’m going to keep saying it was a wizard’s robe. I asked her for a portal but she just backed away slowly before security intervened. I thought that was kinda rude, I’d have tipped her. Oh well, at least I learned that cavity searches are less fun than previously advertised.

Fellow blogger and priest turned rogue, Serianna pointed out to me yesterday that she was having some issues with envenom. Namely, that her deadly poisons were not stacking with the other rogue in her group and thus she was getting an invalid target error when trying to envenom. I didn’t have a chance to test any of this with her (how about taking your pal Zaltu to the Halls of Lightning with you sometime huh? I like heroics too you know ) but I was doing some reading this morning and it seems like the problem might have been that she was using a lesser level of deadly poison than the other rogue and since only the highest level stacks, that was the source of her issue. I certainly hope so, since otherwise that’s a major issue worthy of a hotfix. Anyone else noticing an issue like this?

My guild was raiding 25-man Naxx last night for the first time (very cool) and they were having a lot of success from what I saw. There were, however, no rogues at all in the raid group (not cool). While this does prove that Blizzard’s new No Class Left Behind initiative, wherein all the classes can do comparable DPS, is working it still makes me sad to see my beloved stabbers being left out in the cold. In all fairness, we really don’t offer that much utility (if any) but I still think it would be neat to see a rogue use Tricks of the Trade in combination with Fan of Knives and Blade Flurry + Killing Spree to quickly pull an entire group of mobs onto the tank…AOE misdirect anyone?

Moving right along, being gone for a few days really made me feel like I’ve fallen behind. There’s so much I need want to do that I’ve decided to implement a “Monday To-Do List”. Just a little something simple to keep myself focused throughout the week and gauge my own progress as I go. This weeks list:

• Lockpicking

My Lockpicking is currently a terrible 356. Yes, yes, sad, I know…stop booing it hurts my feelings. My goal for the week is to get to 375 because after that the froststeel lockboxes come from all directions and the skill levels itself

• Leatherworking

I’m currently sitting at 420. I’m setting a goal of 430 to make it a bit easy on myself this week since there is so much I want to do.

• Heroics

Actually do a heroic, or two, or five.

• Reputations
• Wyrmrest Accord – Honored
• Knights of the Ebon Blade – Revered
• Sons of Honir – Friendly

/bow

So let’s talk about Wrath. Wrath is awesome. Well that was easy, see you next week!

…What? Ow! Ok, ok, stop poking me, that stick is pointy.

Ok, so I’m not going to go into gushing detail about why Wrath is awesome, chances are you already know that but I am going to talk about leveling your little stabber through Northrend. First things first is to pick a starting zone. I personally preferred the Fjord but if you’re a Skinner the Tundra will get you to 450 skinning before you can blink. My advice is to pick one at random and then do them both. The best advice I can give you for leveling is to do enough quests in each zone to get the achievement. Doing this will allow you to have two full zones left by the time you hit 80 which will give you the opportunity to make a ton of money from their quests. The quests in Wrath are (for the most part) fun and cleverly designed allowing for a smooth leveling process. You should still grab Cartographer and LightHeaded to make your life a bit easier though.

Once you decided where to go, you have to decided how to go, and I don’t mean which zeppelin, I mean your talent build. A level talent build has some slight changes from a raiding build. Combat is king for leveling, so here’s a build for a 70 stepping into the frozen North for the first time:
Combat Swords Leveling

The biggest differences you’ll notice are Remorseless Attacks (rogues are all about killing and killing and killing without stopping and that extra 40% to crit really helps things along, especially when you combine it with the Glyph of Sinister Strike) and Unfair Advantage (Since you’ll be soloing mostly as you level the damage from the counter really adds up, especially for a sword rogue).

Now that you have your spec, here’s some quick tips for when you’re out there:

• Use your cooldowns
• Don’t forget your poisons! Poisons are amazing now since they scale with AP! Since the fights are generally quick, I like to use either Instant/Instant or Instant/Wound
• Blade Flurry + Killing Spree = WIN
• Use food. You probably have a bunch of food left over from 70 so use it! There will be new and better food waiting for you at 80.
• Use your elixirs and flasks! Like with food, there are better ones waiting for you at 80 so why not use them to help your leveling along.

Allow me to change directions for a moment (I say for a moment as if I’m going to return to the previous topic, but it’s likely I won’t as I think I’ve said everything necessary for the moment). Tricks of the Trade.

Tricks of the Trade, our neat little “misdirect” like ability that we receive at 75.

Some marcos to help out
This first one assumes you set the tank as your focus.

Simple. Now, if for whatever reason you’re using your focus for something else (I have no idea what) you could use this:

There’s a disadvantage here of losing a bit of white damage with the target switching so I don’t recommend this one.

Now, that’s the obvious way of using the ability to lower your own threat and boost the tanks a bit but let’s look at a different way of using it:

Two rogues using it on each other. If the tank is having no problems keeping threat, this could be a good method for both rogues to eek out some more DPS; 15% more damage for 6 seconds every 30 seconds or ~3% overall to be exact (math below). The rogue would essentially be trading threat so that shouldn’t be an issue unless of course the the extra 15% puts them over the edge (that’s what Vanish is for though, right?)

My quick and dirty math:

Of course is based on a steady DPS which we know doesn’t happen but I believe you’d end up with the same results on a fluctuating DPS. The math was quick and dirty but I think it’s pretty accurate.

Wow, I’ve said a mouthful here. I’m going to duck out and take a nap before that stick-wielder comes back.

Phase 1
The gimmick of phase 1 is that there is no healing whatsoever. No pots, no healthstones, no bandages, nothing. They just don’t work so don’t bother wasting them. Also of major importance is that there is no aggro table in this phase, RoS will simply attack whoever it is “Fixated” on. If you stand underneath RoS, in the center of the red selection circle for about five seconds he will fixate upon you. What does this have to do with you, you ask? Sounds like a prime oppertunity for tanks to rotate while you unload on it. Well, that’s true, but approximately every minute RoS will Enrage and that’s where you come in. You want to be Fixated upon during the enrage, so get underneath him about 5 seconds before it starts and watch your Target of Target (You do have target or target enabled, right?). When RoS switches to you, pop Evasion and take a few steps back. The reason for the few steps back is so that someone else can pick him up once Enrage is over. Once you finish this phase (a well geared raid can take him down before the second enrage), RoS will hide in his little cocoon for a moment. During this time, ghosts will appear which will restore 100% health and mana when killed. Afterwards Phase 2 begins.

Phase 2
Phase 2 is the most important phase for you, because you’re on interrupt duty. RoS will be casting Spirit Shock which must be interrupted as well as Deaden which should NEVER be interrupted. Missing an interrupt on Spirit Shock or interrupted a Deaden can easily cause your raid to wipe. Sounds stressful? It is, but luckily it’s not too difficult. So throw on some Mindnumbing poison (A warlock should be doing Curse of Tongues but just in case) and get ready. First thing you need to do is set up a rotation with another interrupter (Fury Warriors for pummel or another rogue for kick). My guild personally uses a rotation of 3 interrupts but it can be done with two. A simple macro like this can really help out:

/cast kick
/raid KICK OFF, PLAYER 2 YOU'RE NEXT

Not absolutely necessary but it doesn’t hurt. Now, make sure you have some sort of target casting bar mod installed (I like love Quartz myself). When it is your turn to interrupt Spirit Shock, STOP DPSING, just attack with white damage and wait for the cast. Spirit Shock has a 1 second cast (1.6 with Mindnumbing or Curse of Tongues) and you absolutely don’t want to be caught in a GCD or without energy. Once again, this can be very stressful but stay calm, pay attention, don’t kick a Deaden and you’ll be fine. Once this phase is over you do the ghost thing again and phase 3 begins.

Phase 3
During the transition between phase 2 and phase 3 someone (hopefully) will be dropping a nature resist cauldron. Grab your potion and use it immediately. The gimmick to this phase is that you will be taking increasingly more damage over time so it is a huge DPS race, however, you do not want to pull aggro at all. If you pull aggro, RoS will Seathe on you causing threat generated to be increased by 200% making it near impossible for the tank to grab the mob back, killing you, wasting time you don’t have and almost certainly wiping the raid. This will cause your guild to hate and shun you, causing you to quit the game, delete your character and find yourself languishing in the hell that is some terrible game like Zu Online. OK, so I’m exaggerating…but only a little. Seriously though, don’t pull aggro. What my guild likes to do is give the tank a good 10 seconds to generate threat, give him all the misdirects we have and then unload. When you drop below 50%, pop Cloak of Skill Shadows to help with the DOT. That’s all there is to phase 3. Finish it off and collect your loot.

Grips of Damnation

Decently solid gloves. Take them if you don’t already have your T6

And that’s it. Not much loot for being so important to the fight huh? Oh well, loot is definitely not everything. Time for Bloodboil!

A good video game can provide all the emotions of a book or movie. A shocking ending can tug at the heartstrings. A well designed villain can elicit feelings of anger or even fear. You can feel the pain of a troubled hero or compelling protagonist. In short, you can connect with the story and the characters within it. You struggle with the characters from the very beginning and feel a genuine connection to them to the point where you care about what happens to them. You are invested in the story and you care about how it ends. But what happens when a story has no end?

MMOs of today have a story, albeit one that is easy to ignore (“Quest givers have text???”). But why is it so easy to ignore? Why is it that I don’t particularly care what exactly killing X of Y does for John Q. NPC? Is it some flaw in the way I play the game? Maybe. Is it a flaw in the game itself? No, I don’t think so, simply a limitation of the genre. With millions of people playing a single game it’s impossible to truly give one player a sense of control over the world. Yes there is a story going on but when you play through the same boss fight for the 20th time while realizing that there are any number of other groups doing the exact same thing and whether defeated or victorious come next week your foe will be right back where he was today. So it becomes difficult to allow the story to suck you in when no matter what you do, the tale will roll on at it’s own pace. It is hard to really feel for the NPCs plight when you know you’ll never receive the satisfaction of a true conclusion, afterall, an MMO should (technically) go on forever.

Maybe I’m looking at this in the wrong way though, just because the old dungeons still exist doesn’t mean that there was no definite conclusion to their story. I should probably be looking at it from the perspective that each block of content is another chapter, another book in the epic saga. Yeah, that is the best way to look at it. We suspend a lot of disbelief when we play games and that’s the point after all.

Don’t get me wrong. I truly enjoy my time playing MMOs, in particularly WoW; so much so that lately I’ve had to eat a lot of the words I’ve said about it in the past (they were delicious by the way). The enjoyment is just different than what I felt playing through something like Baldur’s Gate. Part of that is the limitations of the genre, part of it is my own limitations. But the differences are OK. Two different feelings, two different types of addiction. Plus, if someone were to actually find a way to combine the addictions…the world would be doomed.

Ivy Veins (16.6%)
Power Infusion (20%)

Now is this change of the thief class wrong? No, certainly not, it’s a natural progression when you change the play location from the table top to MMO world. Instances are pretty amazing but nothing compared to what a good DM could create and without a DM the thief as utility starts to unravel.

Nothing beats D&D. It’s hands down the best gaming experience you’ll ever have, but despite this (or perhaps because of this) it can never be fully translated to the console or PC. But that’s ok, WoW’s pretty fun too.

Just don’t forget to bust out your dice now and again.