One Rogue's Journey

So apparently, there was some sort of event over California-way this last weekend.

And we weren’t invited? What the hell?

I know, it’s a travesty.

Seriously, where’s the love? Oh well, we probably didn’t miss anything important.

I suppose that all depends on your definition of important. They did announce the new expansion.

You mean the one we won’t be seeing for over a year?

Yeah, that one: Cataclysm.

OK, so I suppose you want to start speculating and talking about all the different things that are for sure going to change and we don’t really have any information on?

Sigh…yeah, I guess so. So, there was a ton of stuff talked about at Blizzcon this year and I’m not going to regurgitate it all. There are plenty of other sites that have done just that. I would just like to take a moment to make a brief, knee-jerk reaction statement to the stat simplification was discussed.

Knee-jerk reactions are the best kind of reactions.

Right, so, Attack power on gear? Gone. Armor Penetration? Gone. Expertise? See ya (I think, I can’t really remember if that’s gone or not). Attack power now comes solely from Agility. Yeah, really. Haste? Well, now it just increases our energy regeneration, actually, that’s really really really awesome.

Are you going to make a point? It’s going to be about the “dumbing-down” of the game isn’t it? You shouldn’t be that guy. Nobody likes that guy.

I hate to say it, but you’re right. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that this is just a dumbing down of the game and blah blah blah, catering to casuals and the like. That’s the kind of stuff that should be saved for the trolls on the official forums. I’m not jumping to any conclusion just yet and I don’t think anyone else should either. I would just like everyone to remember that just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s going to be bad and just because it may appear simpler (we don’t even really know that it will be) doesn’t mean that it’s watered-down.

Now that I’ve made my Don’t Panic statement I would just say that my initial reaction was one of sadness, while I understand that many people might not like using a spreadsheet to help them with the game, I do, very much so. What can I say, I’m a nerd who likes numbers.

Point? Oh yeah, I’m suppose to have one of those. So, my point is, just relax, the expansion is a long ways away and nothing is set in stone. Besides, shouldn’t we be more focused on patch 3.3 and taking down Mr. McFrosty up in Icecrown? I mean, that’s what we’re doing in Northrend, right?

Hold onto your hats for my response to this one, or if you don’t have a hat, go acquire one so that you may hold onto it.

What do I think about this nerf?

Good.

What??? Good? How can you say that? They’re nerfing us! Nerfing us! IT BURNS! OH THE PAIN, THE PAIN OF IT ALL!

Calm down you. Yes, they are nerfing our fan of knives damage but let’s be honest with ourselves: Fan of Knives is absurd right now. There is just no reason for us to be that good at AOE when we’re already so good at single-target (some people might argue against how good we are single-target but I personally think we’re in a great place). Plus the dress-wearers were getting really upset.

But I love the taste of the tears of mana users.

They are pretty delicious, I’ll give you that.

This makes me a bit sad. The interrupt from FoK was pretty awesome, even with only a 50% chance from having 1 spare point in it. It was nice to have in Thorim’s pit even to interrupt a few lightnings and heals and I’ll miss it.

Where this really hurts is guilds that have been using this to take down Yogg +0 and the devs have even said that “[the encounter] may be too difficult without the interrupt”. But then they also said that they will be nerfing that encounter a bit to compensate.

Oh well, I guess an AOE interrupt that did a ton of damage with no cooldown was too good to be true huh? I could see it causing quite a ruckus in PvP too.

There are Combat Rogues in PvP?

I don’t know, probably.

The Expansion

So there’s been a lot of talk about the expansion lately. With the new races being leaked and the different possible race/class combinations that have been floating around and I’ve got to say that most of the changes to the old world have been intrigued, I love the idea of a place I already know changing and becoming “new” again.

If I have to level through the barrens again I WILL stab someone in the eye.

Agreed.

Now, I won’t lie, my interests as of late have been firmly distracted by other games, but you have my attention Blizzard so try to drop something really interesting on me at Blizzcon will ya?

Oh and I’m totally re-rolling Goblin*

*Not a chance in hell.

So patch 3.2 dropped on Tuesday and with it the new raid instance: Trial of the Crusader. I’d like to talk about the first boss you’ll encounter in this new raid but first: Tuesday, September 1st, eh?

Yeah, what about it?

Seems you were a little off on your estimation of patch day huh?

No. I was actually a hundred percent right.

The patch came out two days ago and you say you were right about the September the 1st date?

Yup, exactly. I don’t expect you to be able to follow my reasoning so allow me to explain myself. As far as I’m concerned the patch is not fully released until all the content is at least accessible in some way, shape or form. The bosses in the Trial of the Crusader raid are on a lock out and will unlock one week at a time, therefor you will not be able to access the final boss (and thus the Heroic version of said instance) until, wait for it, Tuesday, September 1st, the actually full release of the patch.

Oh yeah, what then, how do you like me now?

That’s kind of a stretch don’t you think?

Not at all, now let’s take a moment to bask in my epicness before moving on to whatever it is you want to talk about today, something about a farm?

Sigh. I’m going to talk about the first boss encounter in the new raid: Northern Beasts. This boss fight is actually broken up into 3 different encounters. Let’s take it from the top.

Gormok

Gormok is pretty much a tank and spank as far as us rogues are concerned. The tanks apparently have to do some sort of taunting back and forth to deal with a debuff but…

Blah blah blah, tanks get hit in the face, who cares.

…Right, exactly. So the one little gimmick to this encounter is that every so often a “Snobold” will jump from his back and onto a random raid member. You’re going to have to break off, run to this person and burn down the Snobold. A simple “/targbet Snobold” macro will do nicely here.

In the normal version there is only 4 Snobolds, so deal with then, tank, spank and move on to the next encounter.

Dreadscale And Acidmaw

Say hello to the pair of worms, Dreadscale and Acidmaw or as I like to call them Firey and Farty respectively.

You’re so clever…what are you, 8?

Thank you, and 7. Anyways, Firey and Farty will alternate between mobile and immobile (one of them will always be each). Farty leaves poison clouds along the ground so he will need to be kited while he is mobile.

So, technically these two don’t need to be killed close together in time but they have a mechanic that makes doing so pretty useful.

Farty will throw Paralytic Spray on random raid members which will slow them and eventually paralysis them.

Firey will throw Burning Bile on random raid members, which causes a dot that causes damage in an area around them.

How are these related? Well, if someone with burning bile comes near someone with paralytic spray it will remove the paralytic spray. Ta-Da.

Rogue Note: You can Cloak of Skill out of both of these.

Correct, anyways, burn them down (I like the idea of focusing on whatever one is immobile at the time, they have a whirl knockback but it’s not a big deal).

Moving on.

Icehowl

I like this guys gimmick. Every so often he will leap into the air, doing damage to the whole raid and knocking them back into the walls, stunning them.

After that he will turn and focus on a raid member, after a moment he will charge. You have a speed buff so GTFO, because if he hits anyone he gains an enrage, increasing his damage and attack speed by 50%.

For the love of god, don’t keyboard turn. Strafe out, it’s not hard to avoid. DON’T KEYBOARD TURN!

Yeah, exactly, the best part is, if he doesn’t hit anyone he will be stunned and take 100% more damage, so, burn burn burn.

And that’s all there is to the Northrend Beasts. Now, collect your loots. Here are some awesome rogue loots (as discovered so far):

10-man Normal:

• Collar of Unending Torment
• Acidmaw Treads

25-man Normal:

• Stygian Bladebreaker
• Cloak of the Untamed Predator
• Legwraps of the Broken Beast

Disclaimer: Although some of what is discussed here could be applied to Mutilate this article is focused on the Combat build and style of play.

So, as a rogue, our number 1 priority of our rotation is to maintain 100% Slice and Dice up-time and our number 2 priority is to maintain as high a Rupture up-time as possible. We then attempt to slip in as many Eviscerates as possible without breaking priority 1 or 2.

Hello dead horse, how nice to see you again. How have you been? Dead and stinky huh? That’s a shame.

Yeah, yeah, quiet down, I’m just reiterating some important rogue tenants that are relevant to the points I’m about to make.

Fine, fine, pad your post with repeated information. Be my guest.

Jerk.

Noob.

Right, now that that is over with, back to the topic at hand.

Today I’m going to talk about Energy Pooling, namely when you should be doing it. Energy Pooling is the tactic of waiting a few seconds for your energy to regenerate a little bit before throwing a finishing maneuver.

Why (and when) would you do this?

Let’s take a look at a real world example:

Real world?

Don’t get smart with me, you know what I mean. So, the example:

You have 5 combo points, plenty of time left on Slice and Dice, 3 seconds left on rupture and 35 energy, what do you do? Well, in this situation I feel you have 3 choices.

1. Eviscerate
   You can Eviscerate right then and there and then proceed to Sinister Strike your way back to 5 combo points for a Rupture. There is nothing particularly wrong with this choice, except that it is going to cost you some rupture up-time since rupture will for sure fall off before you can get back to 5 combo points (you should never throw a less than 5 cp rupture). Of course, this loss of up-time could be even worse if you have to refresh Slice and Dice before you can get your rupture up again.
2. Rupture
   You could just reapply rupture right away. If successful you are keeping your up-time up but you are missing out on a couple of ticks of the previous rupture’s damage, wasting them and defeating the purpose of keeping your up-time so high.

   I say “if you are successful” because it is possible that you will run into the “a more powerful spell is already active” error when trying to overwrite your previous Rupture. What is this error? Well, the damage of rupture is based on Attack Power, namely, the amount of Attack Power you have when you first apply it. Rupture will also not allow you to overwrite a stronger version with a weaker version. Therefor, if you applied the Rupture during a trinket proc or other AP buff that is no longer present when trying to apply the new Rupture you will get this message and probably end up spamming the Rupture button until the previous application drops off, which would actually unintentionally be option 3:

3. Pool your energy until Rupture drops off, reapply and then dump your energy. If you simply wait the few seconds for the previous Rupture to drop off and then immediately reapply you get the extended up-time of option 2 without the loss of Rupture ticks. The extra energy you built up can then be “dumped” with a few quick Sinister Strikes (which you would have had to wait for energy to do using method 2). You see, you only gained, you didn’t lose (as long as you didn’t let your energy cap out, more on that below).

You see, energy pooling can be very effective in helping your Rupture up-time which will give a little boost to your DPS but there is one thing you must avoid at all costs with pooling.

DO NOT LET YOUR ENERGY CAP OUT

Let’s say it one more time for good measure.

DO NOT LET YOUR ENERGY CAP OUT

If you’re energy caps out, you are losing DPS every second (that’s energy you could be spending on combo moves which would allow you to regen more energy, and so on and so on).

An important thing to remember is that Relentless Strikes will give you 25 energy for a 5 point Rupture, therefor the “cap out” level when pulling is actually 75, not 100.

So, you’re probably asking, “Zaltu, you handsome, handsome man, what are the exact conditions in which I should pool?”

That, my friend, is something you have to figure out for yourself. Meaning, there are no hard and fast rules beyond what I have mentioned previously. The only way to get a feel for it is to add the concept to your knowledge bank and practice it. It will eventually become second nature. A quick and dirty tip I can tell you now is that it is better to throw an extra Sinister Strike than let your energy cap out.

Energy Pooling is boring. Stab stab stab stab!

Yeah, but it’s a good technique.

Your face is a good technique.

Thank you?

I hate you.

Split DPS is a weekly bi-weekly whenever I feel like it column where the two opposing side of my personality attempt to one up each other in a battle of wits where no one can win. The statements herein are opinions and should be taken with enough salt to give a cow a heart attack (cows have multiple hearts you see).

The buzz around patch 3.2, Call of the Crusader…

Or as I like to call it “Call of the Meh”

Why do you have to interrupt me when I’m doing the introduction?

Because your introductions, much like you, are lame. I’m sorry though, you were saying, something about bees?

I was saying, that the buzz around patch 3.2 is starting to really ramp up and it was about time that we talked a little bit about it. What I’d like to talk about is…

Oh oh, speaking of whatever you were just talking about. It is time for Zaltu’s patented guess of the patch day. Wherein everybody’s favorite rogue – that’s me, not you b to the w’s – uses his vast, uncanny knowledge to predict the patch day with 100% accuracy.

Being a little dramatic don’t you think? You’ve guess one patch day so far.

And I was right. I call that 100% accuracy, don’t you? Anyway, stop trying to ruin my fun, why don’t you go do some math in the corner or something. So, when is patch 3.2: Call of the Meh going to be gracing us with it’s server crashing presence? Tuesday, September 1st.

Are you done?

Yeah, I’m good.

Good, now onto the topic at hand, the emblem change in patch 3.2. First, I want to give you a little bit of history. Remember when patch 2.4 came out with its slew of new and fancy gear that you could buy with badges of justice? Suddenly anyone could grab up gobs and gobs (OK maybe just one gob) of T6 quality gear from running heroics and kara.

Isn’t that how you geared up noob?

Quiet you, I’m not saying that’s a problem but blizzard seems to (or at least seemed to, more on that in a second). When Wrath was realized we saw two different types of “badges”, emblems of heroism from heroics and the ten-mans and emblems of valor from the 25-mans. This system created a divide wherein the extra rewards you could purchase with your emblems would be on par with the current tier of content you were doing. This trend continued in patch 3.1 when Ulduar was released with emblems of valor appearing in the 10-man and emblems of conquest for the 25-man.

You’re boring me. What’s the point?

I’m getting there. In patch 3.2, Blizzard is doing a 180 on this design (well, maybe not a 180, more like a 105). The 25-man versions of the raid will drop the new emblems of triumph and the 10-man will drop emblems of conquest. This is as expected but the real change is that all other emblem drops will also be emblems of conquest (From Ulduar-25 all the way down to heroics).

So you’re saying that you’ll be able to get emblems of conquest, and thus ulduar-25 level gear (T8), from running heroics? Double-U, Tee, Fffffffff

Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Personally, I understand it and I’m not at all bothered by it but I take it from you unnecessary elongation of that popular acronym that you’re not a fan.

Meh, I don’t really care, but I’m suppose to take the other side of the coin on this one aren’t I? That’s the shtick we’re doing? It’s bull really, they’re basically taking rungs out of the ladder and making it a much shorter climb.

Exactly. This follows along with giving everyone a chance to see the new content. Plus it has the added bonus of getting people back into Heroics and even the older raid, since there are much bigger reward to be gained.

I don’t think that people aren’t doing heroics because the rewards aren’t that great. I think that people aren’t running heroics because we ran them until our eyes bled when the expansion first came out and now we’re sick to death of them. You’ll have a hard time getting me into old heroics just for the conquest badges.

Yeah but you’re full of bitterness and hate.

True.

We’re still going to run the new 5-man right?

Oh hell yeah, until we’re sick of it at least.

So, I’m interested in what you all have to say about this change. Like it? Hate it? Don’t care? Blizzard has been doing a lot of flippity-floppity with this expansion. What do you think of that?

Let us know and I promise not to openly mock your opinion.

Please don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Sorry.

Hey there! Did you miss me? I missed you.

No one missed you, just give them the damn information. People come here for advice and strats not to hear about your mundane life. If you must talk about that, throw it at the bottom.

Valid point, though very meanly said.

So awhile back I did a post on Feint in Ulduar. Some time has past since then and I’ve actually seen a lot more of this little instance.

You mean more than 5 bosses?

Yes, Mr spiteful, I’ve actually seen 12 of the 13 bosses at this point.

Still haven’t killed Yogg yet though, huh?

You’re as much to blame on that as I am.

…

Nothing to said to that? Good. Back to the business at hand, let’s go through the bosses of Ulduar and see where Feint can make your healers love you. I’ll be rating the usefulness of feint on a scale of 1 to 5 stab wounds, where 1 is basically a waste of your time and 5 is a must must must use always, because everybody loves numbers.

Flame Leviathan

Usefulness: N/A

Obviously you’re in a vehicle here, so no feint.

Why did you waste space on this then?

It’s called consistency, I’m listing all the bosses.

It’s called padding your post.

Razorscale

Usefulness: 1 Stab Wounds

While using Feint will help you take less damage from the whirlwind of the adds, I don’t consider that a very viable use.

Just say it, if you get hit by the whirlwind you’re noob and even if feint saves you you’ll clearly noob it up in some other way and die anyways.

Don’t be mean. But yeah, don’t get hit by the whirlwind.

Ignis

Usefulness: 5 Stab Wounds

Flame Jets is your target here. You should be using cloak of skill to avoid it whenever possible but you won’t be able to cloak them all. Whenever cloak is down, throw a feint to decrease the load on your healers.

No lame math this time?

Well, since you asked. On Heroic mode, Flame Jets does 8,483 to 9,517 damage and then 2,000 damage every second for 6 seconds. A well timed Feint can halve the initial damage and about 4-5 ticks of the dot, preventing anywhere between 8,241 to 9,758 damage (8,483-9,517 /2 = 4241.5-4758.5) + (8000-10000/2 = 4000+5000)

XT

Usefulness: 5 Stab Wounds

Keep your eyes open for Tympanic Tantrum because it does 10% of your hit points every second for 8 seconds for a total of 80%. With Feint you can knock that down to 50% ( (10% *6)/2 + (10% *2) ).

…Well? No comment?

What, huh? Were you saying something? I wasn’t listening.

…

Assembly of Iron

Usefulness: 1 Stab Wound

It is possible to use Feint when a rune of death is dropped on you to negate a few of the ticks, however, I wouldn’t recommend it, it is better that you just GTFO, as they say.

As who says?

You know, they.

Oh…right…loser

Kologarn

Usefulness: 2 – 3 Stab Wounds

This big Santa Claus looking guy’s right left arm will cast shockwave periodically which does (on heroic) 13,875 to 16,125 damage to the entire raid so a successfully timed Feint will save you 6,937 – 8,062 damage. The reason this doesn’t score higher on the usefulness scale is that is very unpredictable and you really have to guess when to feint to get it off right.

Too much work, let the healers handle it.

It can feel that way, yes and if the healers aren’t struggling on this fight then sure, don’t worry about it but if they are struggling (particularly when the fight is being learned) you can help take a little bit of the strain off of them.

Auriaya

Usefulness: 3 Stab Wounds

Her sonic screech ability does (on Heroic) 190,000 to 210,000 damage divided equally among all enemies standing in front of her. This seems like a ton but divide 25 ways (as it should be) it is only 7,600-8,400, your Feint will knock this down to 3,800 – 4,200. Not essential but a nice bit of help to your healers.

I like kitties.

Yeah me too, I guess we can finally agree on something.

‘Bout time.

Hodir

Usefulness: 3 Stab Wounds

Frozen blows will cause (on Heroic) 4,000 Frost Damage to the entire raid every 2 seconds for 20 seconds. Feint will reduce 3 ticks for a total of 6,000 frost damage. It may not seem like a lot but it can really add up in the course of this (healing intensive) fight.

I like this fight, it’s cool.

I thought I said no puns?

Yeah, like I listen to you.

Thorim

Usefulness: 1-2 Stab Wounds

Like on Razorscale you can use Feint to take less whirlwind damage (a lot of which is unavoidable when in the pit) but that’s hard to time and you’re much better off just dismantling the champions before they whirlwind.

When Thorim himself is engaged you can use Feint to take some of the sizzle off of chain lightning but it is very hard to time which is why the usefulness rating is as low as it is.

This fight is the pits.

I hate you so much.

<3

Freya

Usefulness: 1 1/2 Stab Wounds

If you find yourself too close to detonated lashers and your cloak is down…

AKA, you screwed up

Please don’t interrupt, if you find yourself in this situation a quick Feint can save the day but you’re best just avoiding this situation.

In phase 2, you can Feint the explosion from the bombs she drops but, again, she should just be avoided.

Mimiron

Usefulness: 1 Stab Wound

You’d think there would be more to Feint on this fight that contains so much crazy AOE but the truth is you really just need to avoid all of that. In phase 2 he casts Heat Wave. You can Feint the initial damage but not the DOT, it’s hard to time and not worth it.

God. I LOVE robots!

Me too!

I still hate you.

Right back atcha big guy.

General Vezax

Usefulness: N/A

You shouldn’t be taking any damage in this fight.

Enjoy your kicking duty.

I’m leaving Yogg and Algalon off the list for now since I don’t have enough experience (or in the case of the later, no experience) to speak on them.

Noob.

No, you.

Touche

So that is that. Feint in Ulduar. Use it, love it.

So, where the hell have a been? Short answer is I just took a little unannounced break.

Lazy Jerk.

Shut up you. Medium answer is that life just got a little hectic for awhile and I was just really busy.

Again, lazy jerk.

The long answer is well, long, so I’m not going to go into it.

QQ more.

Shut up.

Anyway, I make no promises but I’m going to be doing my best to get back on track.

l’m a rogue through and through also, it’s my only 80 so far, and this site is actually pretty informative and pretty funny, l especially like the conversations with yourself, blah blah what ev… but l was just wondering if, for pvp, the 5 points in combat for the off hand to do 50% more damage works with mutilate or not… cuz obv then it would be good cuz of the extra damage with your main dps move… l’m currently specced 41/5/25, but l was questioning taking out the 5 points in combat and going 5 deeper into sub to get the 10% attack power increase… so l guess my question is: which is better for mut rogues in pvp, the 50% weapon off hand damage increase, or the 10% attack power increase in subtlety?

TL;DR version of the question: “Should I be taking 5 points in Dual Wield Specialization for PvP?”

Yes! Yes, absolutely! 100% without a doubt you want to take this talent. There is no other talents you could spend those 5 points on that will give you a larger benefit than the 50% extra off-hand damage, particularly if you’re mutilate. PvP or PvE, off-hand attacks are a large portion of our damage. You want this talent.

What do you think about the Resilience change? I mean I think this is the biggest problem for Rogues in 3.2. We have low survivability anyway and with this you will need to survive even longer to be able to kill your opponent(s). Yes you can get Res gear too, but then you do less damage and I don’t think it will even out the problem.

Ah, the Resilience change. For those of you that don’t know, Resilience current decreases from periodic sources (DOTs) and decreases the chance that you will be critically hit. The change that is currently on the table for 3.2 will make Resilience reduce all damage taken.

What do I think about this?

I’m a fan, for the most part.

Yes, it reduces our ability to burn through some of those clothies and that makes me a bit sad (oh how I love blowing up some casters) but it also has the added advantage of making us just a little less squishy ourselves.

Let’s be honest, this change is a knee-jerk reaction to burst in Arenas. Arena matches can be over in the span of a single global cooldown and that’s just too fast. This change is not the silver bullet that is going to fix this problem but it will probably help a little.

It also has one added benefit for rogues. It gets us out of our PvE gear. Now now, put down the pitchforks. We all know that rogues traditionally wear less PvP gear in Arenas than any other classes (namely because it didn’t help our squishyness enough so we needed the extra damage provided by PvE gear). The end result of this was that rogues who were able to raid had a bit of an edge.

I’m rambling off in a number of different directions here so let’s sum it up. I feel the change is a good thing as a whole, it may help stretch that 1 global and you die to 2 globals and you die. Is it the best solution? Probably not. Is it just going to make the healing is way overpowered issue bigger? Yeah, maybe.

I just hope they are attacking this thing on two fronts, the burst damage and the burst healing.

Vacation this week. Zaltu out.

So those fantastic little data-mining goblins have provided for our greedy little eyes. What’s that? Pics or it did not happen? OK, here you:

T9 5-man
T9 10-man
T9 25-man

No, my friends, your eyes do not deceive you. You will, in fact, be able to get T9 from the 5-man dungeon. So does this mean that the new 5-man is going to on par in difficultly with Ulduar? Will you need Ulduar level gear to be successful? I sure hope so, I’d hate to see Blizzard just giving away T9 to anyone who can finish a Heroic. I’m going to have some faith that the 5-man will be sufficiently difficult but I am still not really a fan of this choice.

Edit: There is no confirmation that T9 is dropping from the 5-man. These are just three different sets of T9. Sorry, I jumped the gun on that one. More information when I know for sure.

So how about those set bonuses?

Absolute first impression: they feel backwards. 2 should be 4 and 4 should be 2. That aside, let’s talk about them individually.

The 4-piece. This is not a terrible bonus. I’ll state again, this is a not a bad bonus. However, it is a bit…underwhelming. Not only is it boring but it is significantly weaker than the ability for Rupture to crit (the T8 4-piece). A lot of the 4-piece bonuses are currently increases X-ability’s critical strike chance by 5% so I’m going to cross my fingers and hope this is a place holder.

The 2-piece. This bonus sounds like it could be absolutely amazing. This all rests on what the proc rate is and what the internal cooldown is. If the proc rate is too low and/or the internal cooldown too high this could be next to useless and you’ll continue to see rogue’s with our critting rupture until Icecrown and a hopefully better T10. On the other hand, if the proc rate is too high and/or the internal cooldown too low this could be an amazingly overpowered ability (particularly for a 2-piece bonus).

Well, it’s still too early to tell but the T9 2-piece seems pretty sexy while the 4-piece gets a strong “meh” from me. In fact, a strong “meh” is the general attitude I’m feeling about this patch overall. I don’t know why, it’s just not clicking with me yet.

How about you? Excited for 3.2?

So the Midsummer Fire Festival started yesterday.

Terrible. I am so full of hate and loathing right now I just want to punch something attractive. I shall restrain myself for the moment though.

For the best, you wouldn’t want to punch yourself so early in the morning.

Exactly.

Well, we got everything done in one day so the holiday wasn’t so bad.

Are you kidding me? It was HORRIBLE. All that running around, it took HOURS. It was like the damn lunar festival all over again.

There was some fun PvP action.

That’s true. Remember when AFM chased down that Druid and blinked from his mount and frost nova-ed?

Oh yeah, that was good stuff.

Remember when you killed that flagged level 5 with Throw?

That was you. And it was really uncalled for.

Is it lonely up there on your high horse?

He was level 5!

He was flagged and it was hilarious! It’s not like I camped him or anything, I just continued along with my business.

Fair enough…at least you didn’t tea-bag him.

Yeah, he was too far away.

OK, so the PvP aspect was fun but it still took way too long by the time I was done I couldn’t stand to look at the game anymore. At least there are no more holidays until September.

Can I still kill level 5s with throw?

No!

You’re no fun. What happened to you man? You used to be cool.

That’s a damn lie and you know it.

Meh

Alright, I’m shutting you down.

Fine, I was done talking to you anyways.

Fine!

FINE!

FINE!..er…um..fine.

So, what’s everyone’s opinion of the Fire Festival?

Here we go again. The PTR for patch 3.2 should be coming up at anytime now and everyone’s favorite floating skull, Zarhym, has posted a list of the initial changes planed for this epic event. Won’t you join me while I highlight and discuss some of the changes that will affect us my, stabby brethren and sistern? It will be ever so much fun, I promise. Oh yeah, also, remember that these are the initial notes and are always subject to complete change and/or removal.

This is a nice buff to Orc rogues. You still smell bad though.

What? Why? I mean, I guess it’s nice to have another weapon choice but I just don’t see the reasoning behind this. Don’t get me wrong though, if there are some decent Axe drops, you can be damn sure I’ll be using them, especially because of:

Ok, so they wanted to add another weapon to combine with Sword Spec like they did with Close Quarters combat for Fists/Daggers and Axes were really the only choice. Looks like Axe/Sword will be the new Fist/Dagger? I’d bet money on that.

I’m thinking Blizz wants to see more Shadow Dance rogue’s in the Arenas. The lower cooldown definitely gives the ability less of a kill them this first time or you’re outta luck sense about it. I like the idea of Shadow Dance and a deep subtly rogue but I think more changes need to be made to the tree as a whole before we see the end of Mut/Prep domination

So, overall? I’m pretty meh about things as far as rogues are concerned. There just aren’t a whole lot of changes but that’s ok and to be honest, expected. Rogues as a whole are in a really good place right now. We’re topping damage meters and we’re dominating in the arena. Life is good, I guess I should just suck it up and enjoy my new Axe.