Stalking Halaa

In the middle of the african-inspired Nagrand lies the neutral city of Halaa. It is the object of the zone's outdoor PVP mode. When killing a member of the opposing faction you are awarded a Halaa Battle Token - and if your faction controlls the city you can use these (together with research tokens gathered from the zone's mobs) to purchase pretty good PVP gear.

For about a week Warspike has called Halaa home. Especially when controlled by the alliance. You see stealthing and stalking in the Halaa is very easy.. and several 64-66 comes there to turn in their tokens and they don't really expect a dagger in the back. The guards will assist if I get too close so controlling the fight is paramount. Crippling poison or you better have vanish ready. The mutilate build is excellent for this kind of dirty burst kill.

My favourite PVP moment here was when ambushing a hunter on his flying mount at ground level. After a few stuns he managed to get away and simply soared up in the air with almost no health... I had 4 full combo points on him and next thing a Deadly Throw killed him midair! I love being a rogue =)

I've collected 60 marks.. earned a good chunk of honor and now purchased the Shadowstalker's belt and leggings. It was actually a pretty painful week to do all the marks at once. But now that I am done I can leave Halaa and the alliance there alone.

My next stop is grinding Aldor rep to exhalted... and I am very very close. You see in Nagrand I've been killing beasts like there is no tomorrow (when not in Halaa). The leather and especially the clefthoof leather sells for a good deal of gold. For those earnings I've bought Fel Armament and Mark of Saragas. Doing the Aldor quests in the Netherstorm has helped as well.

Oh.. I am close to finally buying a flying mount.. but we'll see if the gold I have after a few quests is enough.

Learing the mutilate build...

So know I've earned some experience using a mutilate build. I am not convinced that this is the ultimate build but it seems amazing for battlegrounds and large-scale battles. The burst damage you can deliver is more than anything I've been able to deal before. For PVE I think it is simply horrible. I have been trying to finish a few quests in Netherstorm for gold and rewards but with my mutilate spec it takes forever... and the corpse runs. You see when I was a combat rogue I could easily deal with one or two adds without breaking a sweat. Just pop AR+BF+Evasion... With a mutilate build there is really no ace up the sleeve when that extra add comes. I've also discovered that I am truly in need of both more crit and +hit for mutilate to shine. A missed Kidney Shot can screw up a whole battle.

After a few battles I think I got a PVE combo going:

1 Start with cheap shot for a good stun and 2 combo points
2 Mutilate during the cheap shot for 2 more combo points and sometimes 3 with seal fate
3 Wait for energy and then Kidney Shot. There is really no use throwing a 5pt kidney shot if you don't have full energy
4 Mutilate (at this point you have Find Weakness and Imp KS running for additional 19% of damage)
5 Mutilate
6 You usually have 5 combo points here... and I like to throw an Eviscerate

This can also be done against unsuspecting, non-trinketing players... but I've found out that it is seldom they'll let you bash unhindered.

I'll finish this post off with a little PVP anecdote that happened yesterday in the Alterac Valley BG. There was a huge battle raging at Tower Point, the alliance was slowly gaining more and more ground. A very strong defence kept the allies fighting for every inch (meanwhile our own attackers made progress further and further into the dwarves territory). With my mutilate build I wanted to try out burst damage. I looked for mages standing in the middle of the "crowd". I could not find anyone hurt. So I just picked one with big shoulders (usually the damage dealers from hell) and crept up behind him. I released everything... cold blood, Ferocity trinket and a long string of loud curses. I managed to get about 3/4 of his health before his friends started bashing on me. Suddenly I had a debuff list almost covering the whole screen and I got a nasty stun. When the stun released I managed to give the mage one last mutilate - it critted and the mage died. With almost no HP left I did what any rogue would do... Cloak of Shadows, Vanish & sprint. I survived... and as soon as I hit friendly space I got a ton of heals...

For me it was a glorious moment. This is what I've been dreaming of doing as a rogue in the battlegrounds. And that my friends is what still keeps me as a mutilate rogue. I am not going back to combat for awhile.

Boom 70, and respec to a mutilate build

After hours of slaving away in the Netherstorm Warspike was finally rewarded by reaching level 70.

Three cheers for me!

My goal at 70 has always been to start PVP in full. I look forward to all the four battlegrounds as well as starting up an arena team with a few of my guildies. I will not grind much more, nor quest more than neccessary so I feel confident that I can leave my combat fist spec behind. Even though it worked really good in PVP I've always wanted to go back to be a rogue with daggers.. hiding in the shadows waiting for the perfect strike.

I have two builds to try out in the near future, the first being a PVP oriented Mutilate build. The second build is the old classic dagger PVP build - 30/0/31. Actually the last one is very similar what I used with Hexapuma pre-TBC.

What was the first thing you did when you reached level 70?

Warspike almost 70

Warspike dinged 69 today ... and only a few hours later the experience bar showed a litte less than 60% left to 70. It seems the road from 69-70 is much shorter than the earlier levels. I remember feeling the same when my first toons were about to hit 60. I suspect I'll hit 70 tomorrow.. and then I'll be busy with getting flying mounts, aldor exhalted, getting PVP gear and more importantly finding an arena team.

A dagger lurking in the shadows

So there I was, in the middle of the forest south of an alliance outpost killing Fey Dragons to left and right. That damn fey powder wouldn't drop. Just as I pocketed the last dust my debuff bar lit up like a christmas tree. This usually only means one thing... a warlock. Before I had gotten my hand out of the bag I had at least 3 dots running and more coming. Before TBC that would have been the end of the grind and the beginning of a long corpse run. Not this time. Activate cloak of shadows and then boom VANISH.

The battle has been reset.

The scared gnome mounted up faster than you can say Gnomeregan and rode away.

When I get jumped and manage to escape or turn the battle I can't let it go. So I followed him in stealth. I could follow the trail of mobs returning to their positions as he rode past. It seemed he would elude me... but then just as I spotted another gnome (rogue) my the castbars lit up... SHADOWBOLT... I had found him.. or rather my mods spotted him for me. After that it was easy to stun him to death. With Will of the Forsaken and the PVP trinket Warlocks are now easy mode...

I just love stalking the prey as a rogue. I've heard that druids are even cooler with their Track Humanoid to make the task easier. Nah that is too easy =)

An economy going rampart?

The other day I asked a friend if he could craft the Felsteel Whisper knives (throwing weapons) as my rogue Warspike soon hits 70. He was very happy to make them for me but I had to supply the ingredients (and I would expect nothing else). A lot of materials are required for the knives - they are blue level 70 knives after all. When I browsed the AH for the materials I realized that the price for me to get all this stuff would be far more than the price of actually buying the knives themselves on AH. Just a week earlier I had seen them on AH for as little as 30-40 gold. The sum of the mats I would have to buy would on my server be 150-200 gold.

Which led us to a lengthy discussion that the economy in World of Warcraft is seriously wrong. The materials are more expensive than a finished product. Why is it that the common commodities are so expensive? One reason could be that everyone needs the same materials in this case a bit of felsteel (engineers, jewelcrafters and all the blacksmiths) but how many actually needs the throwing knives? And as a guild mate of mine pointed out... everyone and their mother are power-levelling up their crafting professions which makes a huge material demand. And it doesn't end there but many end-game players choose to have two crafting proffessions for those imba BoP's. Every rogue should have blacksmithing for the Drakefist Hammer and jewelcrafting for the Nightseye Panther ... or enchanting to play the AH market for even more gold to afford those pricey materials.

So what possible solutions are there? I see none within the current game mechanics of WOW. So I'll throw out a few ideas...

#1 Restrict the crafting skills to one craft per player

#2 Allow everyone to gather material - this will probably flood the market with mats and thus make sure that a finished product is worth more.

#3 Have mats gathered be BoP and redesign a new interface for the crafting where the crafting can be made into a group action. It can be as simple as a Warlock's summoning. Click on the forge .. add a few mats and BOOM a new item.

#4 Stop the gold buying... we all know that has one of the biggest impacts on the economy.

What are your suggestions?

Warspike's modified pvp combat build

Currently Warspike's build is combat fist but with a slight difference from the cookie-cutter build. I've put points into MoD for additional stealth - and when doing lots of BG that stealth is very welcome. I can easily say that rogues without MoD are very easy to spot... For me MoD has become a requirement.

Warspike's Combat Build

Assassination Talents - 15 points

The first tiers of the assassination tree is almost a requirements. I would recommend all rogues to go for 11 points here. Malice, Ruthlessness and Relentless strikes are god send.

# Improved Eviscerate - rank 3/3
# Malice - rank 5/5
# Ruthlessness - rank 3/3
# Relentless Strikes - rank 1/1
# Lethality - rank 3/5

Combat Talents - 41 points

Combat tree for sustained damage. If you do venture down the combat tree make sure you pick up the signature moves here - Riposte, Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush. When you combine BF and AR you are effectively in god mode. Add evasion and not much can withstand your fury. This goes for both PVP and PVE. Although make sure you have the target stunned before starting.

Personally I chose to go with Combat potency (for that extra energy) and all the way to Surprise Attacks (10% damage increase) and I love them both!

# Improved Gouge - rank 3/3
# Improved Sinister Strike - rank 2/2
# Deflection - rank 5/5
# Precision - rank 5/5
# Riposte - rank 1/1
# Improved Sprint - rank 2/2
# Improved Kick - rank 2/2
# Dual Wield Specialization - rank 4/5
# Blade Flurry - rank 1/1
# Fist Weapon Specialization - rank 5/5
# Aggression - rank 2/3
# Adrenaline Rush - rank 1/1
# Nerves of Steel - rank 2/2
# Combat Potency - rank 5/5
# Surprise Attacks - rank 1/1

Subtlety Talents - 5 points

The king of the rogue talents - if you are the stalking kind of guy that is... I cannot play wihtout it, I feel naked and I do even consider dropping a few points from assassination and put them into camoflage for increased speed as well.

# Master of Deception - rank 5/5

This works for me, although I used to play with maces before getting my Nexus-Claw and that was even more fun! With mace specialization you get a chance to stun and increased weapon skill. Very handy... and very annoying for your cloth targets.

Patch 2.1.2 is here - Arena Season 2

Right now the 2.1.2 patch is getting downloaded ... with lots of warnings on the downloader that "the download is not authorized"... sounds interesting. I guess I'll know about that in a few hours when the servers gets back up.

So lets just quickly look at what the new patch brings.

* Start of Arena Season 2...

The biggest thing with the patch is of course the start of the new Arena season. This also means new gear! I am at level 67 (almost 68) so for me the season could have waited a few more

weeks. I'll be getting into the season early on though. Just as everyone have upgraded their initial gear to season 2.

And the second biggest thing (IMHO):


* PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde have all been redesigned. The trinkets for all classes now have the same effect: Dispels all movement impairing effects and all effects that cause loss of control of your character.

This is huge - and will be very interesting to see how it will work. This will even out the playingfield between a few of the classes.

You can view the full patch notes here.

Update: It seems that a few people's anti-virus programs are detecting Trojans in the patch. According to Blizzard this is false alarm and you simply need to update your anti-virus program.

Finally - Cloak of Shadows

So finally Warspike has reached the esteemed level of 66 which means a trip to the rogue trainer for that lovely skill - Cloak of Shadows. The skill allows a rogue to remove all harmfull effects and then have 90% resist to everything nasty for the next 5 seconds. The number of PVP tricks that this skill alone allows is amazing. Needless to say CoS is an integral part of end-game PVP.

In addition I've made it to Nagrand now. A beautiful zone with lots of beasts to kill - and skin! It seems that every mob that goes down has something for a faction, a quest or just plain simply some good knothide leather. The landscape is very interesting - rolling hills with little ponds and other interesting landmarks. Even though it is pretty open it is hard to spot the opposing faction... very interesting.

I haven't taken part in the world PVP action in Nagrand yet. There is a neutral town smack in the middle and apparently either horde or alliance will have control over it - along with its questgivers and other NPCs.

Going from level 64 - 66 went amazingly fast and I guess the main reason is the ease of doing the quests in Terokkar forest.

Reputation grinding in WOW

One of my biggest problems with WOW is the constant requirement to grind repetation for the various factions. Actually it is not the need for the grind but how the grind is supposed to be carried out that disturbs me.

Take Thrallmar for example. A high reputation for Thrallmar is required for a few crafting recepies but more importantly the key to the heroic instance in that zone. When a new player arrives at the Hellfire Penisula the most obvious thing to do is to do quests for Thrallmar - for reputation, experience and gear. But the most effective way to gain reputation is actually to avoid the Thrallmar quests and go for the ones out at Falcon Point (gives reputation for Silvermoon) and hit the ramparts and blood furnace over and over again until honored with Thrallmar. When finally honored with Thrallmar then should the quests should be completed (at this point the player is also probably over the minimum/recommended level for the quest making them a breeze). This saves multiple runs into Shattered Halls later on for that precious exhalted reputation.

While I understand the need to have reputation grinding as part of the current system, I would prefer it to be a little more similar to how Aldor/Scryer reputation is gained - using quests, and token turn ins. For example I have choosen Aldor for Warspike and it allows me to either go out and kill orcs for tokens or buy them on AH... buying them on AH allows me to grind other things I find more interesting and sell or trade tokens. It gives me freedom to play where I want to... I have yet to experience the new 2.1 content with the daily quests and all - I expect it to work out much better than that annoying Thrallmar reputation =)

It reminds me of the old days in Diablo II where most (end-game) players kept doing runs into Mephisto to get the good loot. It was the only way to really gain good end game gear.

Oh and Warspike turned 65 the other day! I have him decked out in the Thick Draenei leather set so far. I am not going to get overboard in gearing up until I hit 70.

New patch 2.1.2 incoming

Seems like the big 2.1.0 patch spawned quite a few issue to be taken care of... mostly minor changes but for us rogue there is the revertion of Sword specialization:

The change to Sword Specialization making its extra attacks appear in yellow has been reverted. Extra attacks will appear in white and act like any auto-attack. They will no longer reset the swing time of your weapon. [2.1 changed Rogue Sword Spec to do yellow damage and not reset swing timers. This reverts the "yellow damage" part.]

I guess yellow damage and no swing reset was too powerful or conflicted with something else. It has been reverted for warriors as well. I never had any time to try it out as I have been busy with joy over mace specialization.

Check out the full patch notes at: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Also there seems to be new functionality over at the armory with an item database and more goodies. It is not implemented on the european site yet. Actually going to the armory at the european site crashes my firefox... over and over again.

Ding 64!

Warspike is slowly sneaking towards level 70 and all the goodness that awaits! Recently he passed the 64 mark. I've also installed the mod auctioneer to see if I can get some help in making great money from the AH. I usually manage to do Ok but it can't hurt right?

It does take quite awhile to scan the AH for prices and the mod itself do have a heavy memory load. I'll see if I can manage to keep it around.

What is your experience with auctioneer?

A few good combat rogue macros

I've scurried around the official rogue forums in search for a few useful macros for a combat specced rogue such as myself. The first one incorporates riposte into a mashable sinister strike/riposte macro. I am not overly enthustiastic about it since it relies on spamming the button. It does allow you to use riposte a wee bit more at the sacrifice of full control.

/startattack
/castsequence reset=1.5 Sinister Strike, Riposte


The next one covers blind. Using blind against multiple targets can sometimes get a bit tricky, especially if both are all over you. This macro allows you to throw blind by simply moving the mouse over your intended target and press your button.

/cast [target=mouseover] Blind


Finally the I.W.I.N. Button for combat rogues. Pressing it turns on all those killing moves and ends with a sinister strike for good measure. I've not really used this one and I am told that if evasion is on CD it will end right there.

/startattack
/castsequence reset=120 Blade Flurry, Evasion, Adrenaline Rush, Sinister Strike

Regarding macros - I very rarely use them. The only one I've used extensively was a weaponswap macro for my warrior - swapping between sword+shield and my trusty 2-hander.

How many macros do you use?

Work in progress...

Doing some changes to the visual layout of this blog. Don't worry I'll have it refreshed in no time. Actually it do feels a little bit of what I am doing when the main character is getting a bit boring - i.e. getting a new alt.

New rogue build - combat mace

With my beloved horde rogue Warspike dinging 62 last night I bought him a spanking brand new mace (Fist of Reckoning). Its a great weapon for Hemo but even although I love the sub tree I want to investigate a combat mace spec first. Not being 70 yet I had to ditch a few assassin/combat talents...

My build (11/41/0) - I might actually end up placing the next points into MOD instead of more DPS from the Assassin tree.

I was extremely pleased with the result. Adrenaline Rush + Blade Flurry = God Mode

Combat Potency procs alot - giving me faster energy regen. It is more like I am used to with hemo or even seal fate. I need to get myself an even slower offhand. Right now I have some Unyielding sword from a quest.

Surprise Attacks - Increase damage 10% and make the finisher undodgable.
The mace spec procced very often and I can't wait to take this build into the battlegrounds to see how it fares against various classes.

Recruited by the Horde

So for the last couple of weeks I've been playing almost horde exclusivly. A year ago or so when I played my first horde alt (a rogue named Rippz) I used to despise the other horde players. When they talked in general complaining about the weak alliance I just wanted to log in my alliance rogue and gank the living daylights of them.

Now that my main is a horde character (well.. I guess Warspike is my main character by now) I've learned to appriciate the horde much more. It is funny though.. when I played as alliance I always had to listen to the whining in the battleground channels. I thought this was mainly an alliance phenomenon:

- "just let the other side win so we can get a mark"
- "AV is so unfair"
- "We always loose - why bother"
- "Quickly, all turn in your marks before we loose"


However now that I play horde I keep hearing the same thing... did those players switch as well or do both faction have the same kind of players. I believe the latter... and that the green always seems greener on the other side.

Warspike update
Lately I've been playing in AV to get enough honor to get the Insignia of the Horde. I realized that just after a few games I have enough marks and honor for the lobotomizer. Back in the days... I never managed to finish the grind to get the lobo for Hexapuma. AV was simply too slow, too long queues and the rep required too much for me. As soon as I have the insignia I am going to wait with the BG until close to 70.

Simple Lockpicking guide

Skilling up lockpicking can be tough, especially if you don’t concentrate on it from the start. There are basically four ways to skill up lockpicking and that is from junkboxes, footlockers, doors and treasure (chests/lockboxes).

For me I’ve used footlockers to around 250 and then moved over to junkboxes and doors. When arriving in the Outlands I rely completely on pickpocketing all the junkboxes i need.

First of there is an excellent guide to lockpicking at http://www.wowwiki.com/ and if you have the time check out their lockpicking article. I am going to just mention Junkboxes and Footlockers in this post…

JUNKBOXES
I’ve only marked the skill level to when it turns green…

Battered Junkbox – skill 0-75 (drops from level 22-32 mobs)
Worn Junkbox – skill 50-120 (drops from level 32-42 mobs)
Sturdy Junkbox – skill 175-225 (drops from level 42-52 mobs)
Heavy Junkbox – skill 250-300 (drops from level 52-60 mobs)
Strong Junkbox – skill 300-350 (drops from 61+ mobs)

A hot tip is to save all junkboxes you find in the outlands and use them to skill up while you level. When you’ve filled your level’s five skill ranks, mail the remaining boxes to an alt and have them returned when you ding!

FOOTLOCKERS
Opening footlockers is the reliable way to grind your lockpicking skill up to 300 as it doesn’t require you to rely on luck from pick pocket. Your rogue trainer will tell you where suitable footlockers for your skill level are located. Personally I switch place as soon as the footlockers are turning yellow… after that it fails too often for me to have the patience to continue.

Ashenvale (Zoram Strand) 75-95+
Hillsbrad (Durnholde Keep) 75-95+
Stonetalon Mountains (Windshear Crag) 75 – 110+
Stonetalon Mountains (Windshear Mine) 105 -150+
Wetlands (along the coast) 110-145+
Desolace (along the northern coast) 150-175+ (bring water breathing apparatus/potion)
Badlands (Angor Fortress) 150-200+
Swamp of Sorrows 175-200+
Searing Gorge (slag pit/quarry) 200-225+
Searing Gorge (slag pit/upper quarters) 225-250+
Tanaris (Pirate area) 225-250+
Azshara (bay of storms) 235-275+ (bring water breathing apparatus/potion)
Eastern Plaguelands (Tyr’s Hand) 250-275+
Zangarmarsh (Feralfen Village) – 305-310+
Nagrand (Kil’sorrow Fortress) - 325-350+

I strongly recommend you to avoid Angor Fortress and instead go for Desolace. The trafic in Angor Fortress on my server is unbelieavable...

That's it!

The Light at the end of the tunnel - Ding 60!

After several days of hard labor - my undead rogue turned 60! It is time to go over to the dark side of the horde for good.

The last part was boring and nearly crushed me - only my alt hunter kept it going.

So introducing Warspike soon in a battleground near you.

My first big adventure will be going into Stormwind to do the mandatory ganking on poor unsuspecting PVP flagged players.

Hunting high and low...

So I have two pet projects at the moment... one is to level up a new horde rogue to go arena fighting and dungeon-crawling with my RL friends. The other is a Blood Elf hunter..


Introducing Hexaspider - the hunter of all hunters (or at least of my characters). At the time of writing he is approaching level 22 - and it goes fast. I had almost forgotten how quick this class levels. Zero downtime and capable of handling multiple mobs at the same time. Given I've played a hunter to 60 before and knows the in and outs of the class - especially how to manage the pet.


My first challenge with Hexaspider was to get myself a worthy pet - and that pet is a spider boss at the Draenei starting area of Bloodmyst Island. Just going there at level 20 was a very exciting mission. It took a few deaths at the Auberdine docks, but otherwise it went just fine.

I've been taking the path of the Beastmaster... being a loyal reader of Big Red Kitty, I've been following his advice on how to build a beastermaster.

By the way.. extra kudos if you recognize the band this post pays homage to.

Another trick up the rogue sleeve

The rogue has a unique set of skills that allows him to respond to a situation in an instance going ballistic. Take the following example. Your party is inside an instance busy fighting a group of mobs, the mage has one mob sheeped and the others are being dealt with. Then behind you a new group of patrolling mobs appear... this is usually disaster for a PUG group trying an instance at the correct level. As a rogue you have several means of avoiding this....

1. Throw a distract, turning the oncoming patrollers away for a few precious seconds. Might give you enough time to down that mob and avoid panic.

2. If the group is humanoid - vanish, distract and sap one of the incoming patrollers.

Usually #1 is the correct way as it gives the group valuable reaction time to the new threat.

The New and Improved Rogue
For awhile I've been levelling a new rogue, albeit on the horde side. The time has come for me to switch to the other side. I am still fighting with the road to 60 and to speed up the process I've decided to stay away from battlegrounds (a vice of mine). I am also dangerously close to getting burned out on WOW. My own recipe for that is to take up another alt until the feeling passes. So... I have a little hunter in training as well.

Damn this altism =)