Hexapuma is in torpor...

So finally after almost two years it is time for me to put the WOW gaming to rest. A lot of other things have come up and on the gaming front I've started playing EVE together with the very same people I once started out WOW with.

I still have my account active and do mainly PVP with my Paladin alt, Hexapanther.

So if this blog suddenly changes to feature lots of starships and other sci-fi elements you now know why... and to all rogues. Take care out there and be careful with that thistle tea.

.Hexapuma

Looking for new server

I've been up to lots of things since the last post. Basically I've had it with the long wait queues in Battlegroup 3 for getting into AB/AV/WSG... so I've been researching various other realms.

It does mean that I have left my old guild. Painful.. and it is more painful that all of my friends are on the Ravencrest server. The only other option I have is to level a new rogue and stay below the 60 bracket or get busy with my alts...

Regarding raiding.. I've had my share of raiding now and quite frankly the 40 man raids lasting for 5-6 hours are not my idea of fun. I really dislike the idea that in order to get a *good* weapon you need to raid. I am so looking forward to TBC for the arena battles and the revamped honor reward system.

to be continued

BWL & Onyxia here I come

So last night I decided to ignore the guilds MC run and instead concentrate on getting leather-clad destroyer through UBRS. First off, I truly despise sitting waiting in IF spamming LFG every other minute. Especially when the channel is filled with crap from people who just gotta be heard. Every minute is painful.

While doing the LFG routine I got a lot of whispers with: LFG? Yeah a group not a player... eventually I understood that if I was to get me and my daggers into UBRS it would be by setting up my own raid.. including all the hassles of getting a keyholder, tank and healer. So instead I took the LFG channel with me into AB...

Even though you are automatically entered into a raid when going into the battlegrounds, these does not affect your "Real" party status. I was able to get invited by a group ready to go to UBRS =) No more waiting in IF for a group. SWEET!

The UBRS raid was led by an epic warrior from Inquisitors. Yay, this might even work =). It was a long time since I ran UBRS and those lower instances but it was fun. My new gear cut through their armor like a hot knife through butter. While the tank was AFK downing a pizza I was the tank =) Actually it works quite good as long as you don't have to tank multiple mobs.

Loots of stuff dropped, but no Eviscerate book..I did pick up The Shadow Prowler's Cloak. Never seen it before but it was a good find.

In the end I am now attuned for BWL, Onyxia and the next part of the MC questline! I increased my FR by 30 from the quest objectives alone ^^

Returning to IF my guild asked me if I'd join for Ragnaros.. I came into MC right as Majordomo was killed. To my surprise the Core Hound Tooth just dropped... when we downed Ragnaros (on second try) the Perdition Blade also dropped... I lost it to another rogue. If hadn't bidded on the claws previous MC run I would have had sufficient DKP to bring them home. Well there is always a next time - I hope.

Oh.. regarding the fists I picked up last week. Yes they do lots of white damage and yes they do work in raids but I am not overly impressed with them. I have not yet tried any PVP with them. My Krol Blade pops back into my hands as soon as danger lurks around the corner.

I am such a fool...

I am such a fool... last night in MC I was so hyped about the chance of getting a weapon upgrade. I was also in the lucky position of being top rogue DKP. So basically if anything would drop I'd be guaranteed to win it. Somehow I managed to fumble it... before the raid I noted down my DKP and that of the next one in line just to be sure. At Garr both Brutality Blade and the Gutgore Ripper drops. After a moment of joy I decided to go after the Brutality Blade (being human and found of Sword combat it was a rather easy choice). The Gutgore is auctioned first.. I pass and another happy rogue gets it. Next up.. the Brutality Blade.. I bid my max and just waits for the announcement.. but its not me its another rogue, the one just below me in DKP count. The strange thing is he bids with the same amount I have as max... and then it hits me. I misread the dkp chart.. instead of noting my own I had noted the other rogues dkp. Bleh. No weapon upgrade for me this run. So lesson learned? Double, nay, tripple check the dkp properly.

Well I didn't go completely empty-handed away from last night. I did pick up Eskhandar's Right Claw for minimum dkp. Now it was more of a fluke... I am curious of trying out a fast weapon with lots of poison. Before you say anything... I am pretty sure that a slow weapon is better for pumping out lots of nice sinister damage and it will be pretty moot in PVP.

But I rather discover that one myself after testing it... so for the next raid I'll be respeccing for fist/poison combat. If you have any suggestions I'll be happy to check it out.

Profile updated

So I took the time to actually create & update a ctprofile profile for Hexapuma. The main profile is what I use for grinding, PVP and raids without the need for FR. The fire resistance profile is (surprise surprise) used for the more fiery parts of MC including Ragnaros.

I am slowly upgrading my FR gear to become less and less of a burden for the healers, although I think I am already doing a fine job of that.

My next goal is to get a Molten Helm, Lava Belt and maby even Molten Boots. For the observant I don't have the pre-onyxia quest completed yet. I am waiting to get myself into an UBRS run. Something which has proven incredibly difficult after the Eviscerate book update... that combined with my time schedule.

Actually if I just could get one run into UBRS I would complete:
* The onyxia pre-quest and get my a valuable FR necklace
* The BWL pre-quest
* The Hydraxxian Waterlord quest for the FR ring.

Conclusion.. I really really need to zip through UBRS.

Cross-server Battlegrounds

So after two weeks of Cross-server battlegrounds I can only say it has been a huge let down for me. Previously on Ravencrest it took me 4-5 minutes for AB or WSG game and almost instantly for an AV game. Now the wait time is over 20 minutes for AB/WSG and around the hour for AV games. I suspect it is an overrepresentation of Alliance players in the battlegroup because there are an astounding number of instances up.

Anyway this is really sad... I love going into the battlegrounds but this is simply not an option anymore. I can't login, wait around for 20 minutes, play 5 minutes and then wait another 20.

So what can I do? I can play my alts and avoid the level 60 bracket or I could PAY and get a transfer to another battlegroup. Missing friends and all... Very unfortunate.

Had a great guild raid to Molten Core yesterday and we cleared all bosses of MC without any wipe on around four hours. With my gear somewhat good (PVP set + Nightslayer) I am holding out for a weapon. With my build now combat I managed to stay on the top 5 of the damage chart. I am sure that I can go higher when I get more efficient with AR and BF.

My biggest issue so far compared to a SF build is the lack of combopoints. It takes forever to generate them... ^^ I was hoping to do a little combat in BGs too... but hey the queues were simply too long.

Combat Swords...

So after being specced Seal Fate for a good while I wanted to go back to combat swords again to see if my gear would have improved it since last time. New build 16/31/4 (I personally can't live without a few points in MOD).

Survivability ... I seem to survive longer in BG's but when solo grinding I actually take more hits now. The whole SF build is all about gouging and getting a few nasty backstabs in.. combat swords is more about upfront damage. I haven't really nailed down a good flow yet and I suppose I'll have to rely more on kidney shot...

I am scheduled for a MC raid tonight but it seems like I'll have to sit this one over as it has 7 rogues signed up already... guess it will be BG night ;) If I do get into the raid I'll see if I have increased my dps with combat swords...

Guild trauma

We had a rough night... our server had constant lagspikes and we were supposed to get little ragnaros down. After 8 or 9 attempts ragnaros despawned (he will despawn 2 hours after the first battle with him has been initiated). It is a shame because we have had him 3 times before and I wish I could blame the lag but it wasn't entirely its fault.

With the guild progressing through MC, we've burned out 3 raid leaders. The guild is going through alot of inter-drama. I hope we sail it through. I've read on numerous other guildpages and blogs that once you nail Ragnaros and start peeking into BWL things are bound to change. Alot of guild can't handle the shift - suddenly you need enormous commitment. Lots of reagents to be farmed - fire pots, health pots, and gold for repairs, flasks and a gazillion other things. Constant wiping doesn't improve morale either. It becomes a rift between the truly hard-core raiders and the "causal raiders"... HC raiders being annoyed by the lack of dedication from the casual and the causal being annoyed by constant wiping.

Our guild started out casual, became semi-hardcore and now has both types of players. Various penalties are being handed out for leaving mid-raid (without notice) and the mood is getting darker.

Personally I am probably more of a casual raider. My schedule only allows me to raid once a week but with periodic gaming during the rest. It allows me to do some farming and more importantly PVP =) I love the guild and if it breaks down I gather it will be hard to find another that will accept a rogue that can only raid once a week =/

Oh .. our server is getting a hardware upgrade this maintenance. I wonder if we'll notice any difference. Hopefully it will quell some of the lagspike we have. I just wished more horde would play in our battlegroup since the waiting time is about 15minutes for AB and over an hour for AV... funny enough, the BG queues are much faster on lower levels.. so either there are plenty of hordes in training or just less alliance there. Dunno but I am getting most of my PVP fix at the lower brackets right now.

SF and UI hell!

So I picked the old classic Seal Fate for my new 1.12 build. I really wanted to go Hemo or heavy combat swords... but my weapons are not really up to par with hemo and I hesitated so much.. so I went with SF to see how the BGs would come out.

BGs in battlegroup 3 has been a pain. There is lag from hell when it comes to actually join the queues. You talk to the NPC... but nothing happens. 10 minutes later the instance list pops up for a second, just enough to remind you that if you were patient enough and waited by the NPC for an indefinate period of time you would be able to join the 40 minute queues.

But they'll fix it.. it will take a while but then it will start working. That is how it works.

I downloaded a new UI to celebrate the 1.12 patch... going with NurfedUI and nothing more. I've always believed in having as few mods as possible. But man! going from one UI package to another is time consuming. Spent a few minutes in AB in confusion of where my skills were and it seems everytime I tried to go for Cold Blood I would switch the menu page. SHIFT-2 is my usual Cold Blood key.. but without fixing up Nurfed UI correctly it swapped my main attack skills for bandages and shit...

1.12 rogue talents reviewed

So I've just downloaded and installed the 1.12 patch. Later tonight I'll have to respec and to be honest I don't really have a clue of what to spec. My previous spec was a classic Seal Fate (31/8/12)... I'll see if that will serve as a starter or else I am going with a Combat Sword build to make sure I don't gimp my PVE DPS too much.

Combat Sword is also quite handy in the BGs... although you need slightly better backup.

I just quickly browsed through the official wow forums and they are filled with many "OMG! the worst review ever" threads. Somehow I think the rogue community is a crowd impossible to please.

MC on farm status?

Yesterday the guild cleared the whole Molten Core in one go... little over four hours and without a wipe. I guess this qualifies for putting MC on farm status. Unfortunately I wasn't raiding yesterday. I had plans to join tonight.. with no raid going I'll try to get into an AQ20 spot later this week to get the quest Perfect Poison completed. I desperately need to upgrade my Heartseeker...

Anyways with MC cleared the guild will be hard pressed to start with BWL. While I want to get into BWL I still think we are miles away from doing anything but wiping as most of our members still only have very few T1 pieces. I gather we should stick around in MC for a few more weeks before seriously attempting BWL. Problem is that the most raid intensive members have little left to gain from MC and will probably do their uttermost to start BWL. We'll see what happens.

In other news.. this weekend I'll be taking care of our very-soon-to-be 4 month old son alone for the first time. It will be a great adventure! He is the curious, awake kind of little guy so I'll have my hands full.

Ragnaros down

I had a great time in MC... on our guild's third attempt we managed to kill Ragnaros. It was one of those really legendary fights that will live on in memory for a very long time. Our raid leader did a really good job shouting "More dots" and "Hit it like you mean it" during the fight. We had a few newbish players during the fight such as the paladin in my group that never tried to stick close to his melee group. I noticed how the Fire Resist Aura would come and go as I moved back and forth dodging Ragnaro's AOE blast.

Rogue tactics during the Ragnaros event is fairly simple. Start out behind Rag and move in to melee. Start building DPS slowly with lots of feints. As soon as the 5 sec raid warning appears move back to the edge to avoid getting thrown high into the air. Rinse and repeat. The last few percent was extremely exciting as we were just a few people left alive. Mostly caster loot appeared and no Perdy =(

Interestingly I didn't use any sharpening stones or other consumables than a +25 strength thingy from Blasted Lands. I ended up third on the meters.. a combat rogue in the 0.5 set did an excellent job of topping the charts. Guess I have to start focusing more ;)

Pinioned has now successfully cleared ZG and MC. My guess is that we'll soon start with the first bosses of BWL once we've killed Rag a few more times. So it is time to stock up on even more FR gear.

The new Burning Crusade PVP

I just read Joystick's exlusive intervju with Blizzard designer Jeff Kaplan.

There was a few very interesting tidbits...

The first is the arena combat system. You'll be able to join a team: 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5. There are two different modes you can play: One is called practice mode to hone your skills and the other is competitive mode, which is level 70 only.

Very interesting. This will allow champions to emerge from pre-made groups. Hopefully the end of a few premades vs pugs. I really look forward to the 2 vs 2...

You can get the best rewards in the game on par with the raid game. So, wherever the raid game loot is currently at, the PvP arena system will match those rewards. And, the arena system is a seasonal system that will last three months then reset with a new set of rewards each season.

Again interesting.. I'll be sure to look for the raiders to start whining about easy epics. I guess most of them have not fought a godly team. On our Ravencrest server it used to be a guild called Amazing Randy... they sure showed skill.

The last pvp improvement is:

The third thing is a revamp of the honor system. We're not going to do away with the honor system, but we're going to fix many of the flaws with it. The first thing players will really care about is that your honor points will no longer decay. Honor points will now become the like the PvP equivalent of a PvE experience.

Finally.. I wonder if they do use some sort of weekly comparisson to adjust the amount of honor each player recieves compared to the amount of PVP done.

All in all extremely interesting features that definately gets my interest to wait for the expansion.

Move along, nothing to see...

Did some more raiding with the guild... and it was interesting to try out the Seal Fate build in a raid. It worked pretty good and I ended up third on the damage meter. Topped by another rogue (Mulán) and one of our mages (Fireleon). It was a close race. No deaths this time except for a full wipe as we were heading to Golemag... unlucky body pull as we were going to bypass a few mobs and a Core Hound appeared. In the end we got everything and a quick trip to the graveyard.

The guild got the whole beginning of Molten Core nailed down now. We need to learn Sulfron and then its Ragnaros time. I've started to farm for gold again to keep afloat. Wipeing costs gold and my reserves just went down after a lucky break on the AH... Goty myself a Myrmidon's Signet.. It was about time to replace my Mason fraternity ring =)

Everytime I go raiding I miss PVP...

Seal fate so far

I've been pleasantly surprised with the Seal Fate build for mob grinding. It is not a combat spec but it is still very efficient. I have yet to try it out properly in PVP and raiding.

Tonight I have a MC raid scheduled so we'll see what happens. Hopefully I'll have to vanish a lot ;)

A WoW Memory
About a year ago I was in Darnassus with my warrior, Ripperjack. I was lingering around the bank waiting for a friend to arrive. At that point a low level rogue approached. He whispered to me: "Hey can you craft me a dagger?" At that time most warriors were actually blacksmiths.. Ripperjack on the other hand was a herbalist/alchemist. So I replied to him "No, I am no blacksmith, I run around picking flowers and making tasty drinks instead :)" The rogue responded: "..." and then "Thats so gay". I don't know if it is unmanly to pick flowers but it did make me rich ;)

Talent Respec

So before the much anticipated 1.12 patch I decided to respec my old PVP build to 31/8/12, the much popular Seal Fate build. I've been itching to try out vigor, seal fate and cold blood.

Much to my dismay the queues to AB during the summer period is long. 28 minute instead of the usual 5-6 minutes. So far I've just noticed that I truly miss Preparation & Camo . I've also noticed that I am a poor finisher... especially to remember using Cold blood. More buttons to press but it has not let me down yet.

I also did the first two Molten Core quests... first a quick stop at EPL for the plagued elementals and then over to Silithius for even more elementals. Everytime I do a bit of grinding a miss my old combat spec. Silithius is thick with farmers... both alliance and horde. It seems they do have an unstable truce. All it took was one dagger in the back and a full war was raging - with me in the middle. Fun.. again World PVP is probably where we still shine as heroes or perhaps villains.

Was fun to do a bit of questing.. next stop is UBRS so I'll probably have to find me a nice PUG. The dread.

Hexa goes raiding

So I've been raiding in MC alot lately (that is once per week) and even though I missed the last ring I blew all my dkp on the Quick Strike Ring when it dropped this time. I switched a +9 agi/stam green ring so it was a pretty good upgrade. I was actually quite surprised when I won it since I dont have an especially large DKP pool but people are greedy =) also i gathered that it would be a hard fight against the other rogues in the guild to get any Nightslayer pieces.

We had trouble dealing with the Imps (at lucifron) or rather not trouble but we were slow and our raid leader wisely wanted us to clear em out to stop people of accidently pulling them into the fight or getting Mind controlled there. All the imps led our mage to get a good start into the damage meters but I prevailed and ended up second. Not bad for a shabby single target rogue.

With my focus being more on raiding instead of PVP I gather it is time to once again respec to combat swords... I love that build since I don't have to run around repositioning myself all the time... and in MC that is all you do.

The 1.12 patch looks exciting, although I am a bit disappointed. I had hoped for bigger changes - to bring a new fresh wave into the rogue game. Seems like the traditional builds still holds except a few talent changes. My personal build won't survive 1.12 so I'll have to find a new one.

over and out..

Garr drops fine loot...

We went into MC tonight... and except for an embarassing wipe at the initial firelords (a bad pull) we cleared our way to Garr before call off. Guess we still need to work on our speed... A few cool items dropped such as the Quick Strike Ring and the Brutality Blade.. however my meager DKP wasn't enough. Strangely enough the Brutality blade didn't go for much dkp at all... guess most of our guildies are kinda greedy on their dkp =)

Ended up #5 on the damage meter so I still need to improve. Not bad though considering I have a straight PVP spec.

The Fire Festival

I've been pretty focused on PVP the last months but with the little Fire festival event I couldn't resist to ride out in the world to check out the various fires.

I had a blast... riding through semi low level areas looking for the fires was not only fun but it also brought me back the joy of World PVP.

It took me little more than 2 hours to complete a few of the quests but it was great fun. Rewards are not especially enticing as they only last for a set number of days.

There is something very sinister to world PVP as a rogue.. you really have complete control in when to start a battle and how to proceed whereas in the BGs you have a timer running (kill the horde before he caps etc).

There is a fine balance between World PVP and BG PVP.. and unfortunately rogues are gods in world and lackeys in BG. It will be interesting to see what blizz have in store for us in patch 1.12... I wouldn't be surprised if Blizz thanks to world pvp will be very limited in the ways that they improve our class.

Oh.. tonight I am going Molten Core with the guild... perhaps a nightslayer piece or two will be mine. I upgraded my OH dagger from Blood-etched blade to Scarlet Kris yesterday... ;)

Global LFG channel = bad

Well I guess I am not the only one that finds the new updated Looking for Group channel is really crappy. At first it seemed ok.. a way to find instance groups without having to loiter around in IF... but in a couple of days the LFG channel degraded into what best can be described as the Barrens' general chat. /leave

I guess the way to use it is to join the channel only when you are actively looking for an instance group. So the whole global idea kinda fails...

I hope the wait for 1.12 is a short one.. the 1.11 probably took longer than usual since it added the whole Nax instance. I wouldn't be surprised if 1.12 is almost complete by now.

Quick visit to Molten Core

Yesterday I had a chance to raid with the guild and we went down into the Molten Core. Since I don't raid much I was amazed to see how professional the guild has been in clearing trashmobs and the bosses. It was one of the first times that Pinioned went into MC as guild-only.

We effortlessly cleared our way to the first boss Lucifron. A freak pet pull had us wiped the firt try. Actually I wouldn't even call it a try =) A few minutes later Luci droped Cenarion Belt and the Gauntlets of Might.

Magmadar was next up... of all my MC runs (and I have about 10 under my belt) this was by far the most painless. From his bloody corpse our dear Krinssan looted the Aged Core Leather Gloves. Most of the rogues were uninterested and the gloves went for a lousy 50 dkp. While those gloves aren't the best, they are pretty good raiding gloves for a dagger rogue.

The raid continued to Ghennas. Unfortunately I had to leave right before the boss figh... I heard that Ghennas was killed at firt try and the Nightslayer Gloves droped. Oh well.. there is always another raid.

Patch 1.11 tomorrow!

Patch 1.11 is due on the EU servers tomorrow according to Blizzard posts. Very exciting and it brings us one step closer to our beloved 1.12 rogue patch =)

A few friends are sending out warnings to mail all their pots to their mains since they've seen screenshots of pots being bind on pickup. Personally I don't believe it for a second as it would make the alchemy profession seriously gimped. Something is bound to happen though as Argent Dawn will trade major health/mana pots for special crystals that will drop from the undead.

If worst comes to worst my alchemist will be stuck with a large supply of useless firepots. Bring it on Blizzard =)

Warsong wants you!

This weekend is WSG weekend.. so its an obvious hang out place for me who needs lots of honor at short time. Games are fast and at my server there are about 50/50 wins. It is also kinda nice to take a break from AB... I do have approximately 20k rep to grind and in my pace that will take about 10 weeks... =/

I ventured into Alterac Valley today. Just sniffing around checking the rep income to see how long it would take me to get the lobotimizer. Too long. However the game was won by the alliance! It is my first won AV - ever! I used to play alot of AV with my hunter (almost exhalted) so I've seen plenty of AV action. To my great disappointment the reward for winning AV is amazing for new hunters and warriors but totally sucky for rogues. I got the crossbow...

My computer is restored now.. for some reason I cant get the wirless network to work =/ Luckily I had a cable to plug it directly.

HD incoming

Just a little update on the HD situation.. Grimbold (co-worker) managed to restore all of the data on the HD so life is good! A new HD has been ordered and should arrive tomorrow... Felt a wee bit odd to raid at work the other day =)

Hakkar defeated

Last night I raided with my guild and it was loads of fun. We went directly for Hakkar (as they had cleared the five channeler bosses the day before). After a few wipes we downed Hakkar in a glorious battle. We had a pretty strange lineup for the raid with only 1 druid, 2 priests, 3 rogues, 2 paladins, 3 hunters, 3 mages, 1 warlock and 5 warriors. It is the third time Hakkar is downed by Pinioned so they're getting the hang of it. So loot... I've hard that Hakkar drops rogue loot galoré - not so this time. Heart of Hakkar, Cloak of Consumption and the Soul Corruptor's Necklace plopped out of his messy corpse.

After Hakkar we proceeded to take out the fishboss, Ghaz'ranka. And from his body we pilfered Nat Pagle's Fish Terminator. After a few crazed attempts by our seemingly drunk priest to bid on the staff a warrior finally won it. Except for the name, the Fish terminator is actually a really good 2H warrior weapon with more than +40 strength.

Now I have to find more time to do some guild raiding... I might get away with a raid once every other week =/

Analyzing the HD...

The HD is now under the microscope.. our sys admin is having a look at it. *holding thumbs*

On another note... tonight my wife is going on a small barbecue with her colleagues and taking Nemo with her. She is after all his personal food machine. So tonight is raid night for me. Was a month or two since last time but Zul'Gurub 'ere I come!

Harddrive crash

So my harddrive crashed this weekend. After a couple of hours with DELL tech support and running a few diagnostics we zeroed in on HD failure. It is not completely busted so even though DELL can't do anything I might be able to persuade our company tech support to help me extract important files from the HD. My biggest gripe is that I have about 5 years of digital photos stored on that drive and no DVD backup. yes stupid I know... but how often does a HD crash anyway? First time for me... So I'll probably play little to no WOW in the coming week =/ Guess that will ruin any chances for me to hang on to rank 8.

Amazing session

Last night after reconfiguring my equipment and reaching a whopping 600 AP together with 3.9K health I broke a few new records in AB. Mages, Shamans, warlocks and priests quickly fell to my amazement after receiving a 1.8K ambush and a backstab over 1000.

I guess for most end-game rogues this is pretty lame but for me it was a world of difference. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I really really need to replace my old Heartseeker with something more powerful. The Thunderwood Poker is just around the corner for me but I do need day to raid AQ20. Time my friends is not something I have a lot of these days.

oh.. and I got the Nightslayer Bracelets today... yummy.

Pinioned winclipped...

One of the guild's founding members (raidleader, main puller and guild bank) decided to move on to greener pastures this week. She left for one of the most prominent PVE guilds on Ravencrest - The Inquisitors. I fully understand her choice as she had most of the gear from MC already from various "open MC raids". She also plays in a whole other league than most of our members when it comes to time and dedication.

She will be missed.

However during times like this other members step up and get a chance to be main puller and even raid leaders. I think in the long run we'll grow stronger even though we'll have a setback in the comming week(s).

It does not really affect me since I have very little time to do any raiding at all. I need to start doing a few ZG runs though to get the primal hakkari's needed for the Madcap outfit. Especially now since there are rumors of the set being boosted from superior to epic quality...

I've been buying bijou's of AH for money grinded in various low-level instances so I should be able to pump up my rep to revered pretty easily. Just need those drops!

Finally a little humor - guess most of you have already seen it. But 'tis is good stuff =)

Knight-Captain Hexapuma

So I made rank 8 this week. Sweet. I've finally been able to toss away that old green of the monkey shirt and replace it with the rank 8 chest.

I still can't believe that my old devilsaur still is far better than the pvp set. With 1.11 the new pvp armors will be better though. So even though I had planned to relax the honor race a little it seems I will have to prevail until 1.11 patch is published.

I had a big laugh in AB this weekend as in one game two people were trying to direct the zerg to various locations. "Everybody - GO MINE NOW!!!" and five seconds later the other one would shout "DEFEND FARM FARM"... it was a fun game. At one point one of the "commanders" was angry yelling for people to stop attacking so many different places. Normally I would agree - but this time the zerg actually attacked what the two commanders asked for.

A tip for budding AB commanders. If you want to direct people to do things. Use more descriptions than "Attack Farm now".. people don't know how to choose between defending and attacking and odds are that no one will stay on defence.

Mind-numbing discoveries

I've had to scale down a little bit on my PVP this week. I hope it won't hit my rank too much. Worst case would be to have to grind AB one more week. I really want to get back into a little guild raiding once or twice a week but with a 6 week old baby in the house its hard to get those raiding hours together.

I've been a somewhat typical rogue and stalked around AB with dual crippling poison applied. I've started to experiment with other poisons as well and now I usually go with the crippling and mind-numbing combo. I do feel that it really improves my chanses against casters ... what a surprise =)

Worst thing to encounter at a flag is actually another rogue with cripling and deadly poison. Seems like they only exist to counter other ninja rogues. Wham-bam and your have crippling, deadly poison and a 5-pt rupture. Thats when a rogue is a true sitting duck... I'll be doing a little experiments with that myself next week.

Oh.. gotta run to IKEA now for a little furniture boost at home. Need another shelf to put our CD/DVD.

Shi Mian Mai Fu

Since a couple of days back I've been having my throwing daggers equipped when going into AB. Sure I do loose a wee bit of stamina & agility from leaving my Carapace Spine Crossbow at home BUT instead of waiting 3 seconds before shooting, throwing weapons are almost instantanious.

So? you might ask.. well instant ranged allows me to throw a dagger into that pesky hunter with aspect of the cheetah or that druid running off and score a dazing effect. Even more importantly I can now much more reliable break node captures when rooted or severly snared.

Maintenace day today... lets see if I can get to rank 8 for the Knight-Captain's Leather Armor and
Knight-Captain's Leather Legguards. I am at 46% of the rank. My guess is that I'll only make it up to 80-90%...

AB reputation is at 9k so only 3k remains to revered and the Highlander's Leather Boots.

Into the depths... again and again

So after doing a few AB matches a guildie looked for people to do the Onyxa pre-quest. Wanting to have that one finished too I packed my flash powder and flew to Thorium Point. Well at the Blackrock Mountain I realized that the poor kid also had to find the notes, kill the two bosses and others in the group wanted to complete the pre-mc quest.

We went down to talk to Windsor (poor bastard being locked up forever in that mountain and everytime he gets rescued he is killed in Stormwind) to start the questline. Of course there were numerous trips back to the Burning Steps to get the quest onward.

After an hour or two we had cleared him up the final step AND completed the pre-mc quest and then both of us had to quit. So I still have not completed the jailbreak part after 8 attempts. Loot? Well I managed to secure a Black Diamond which sells for about 50g on our server currently... not bad. It will keep my poison stash for a couple of more AB matches =)

Mother's day

Today is mother's day here in Sweden (I don't know if other countries celebrate this as well) so me and my 4 week old son Nemo has been shopping. There is a goth doll series called Bleeding Edge Dolls that my wife collects. We managed to find a pretty cool one, Cyberella D'Nile...

Know thy enemy - warriors

There are a few tricks that rogues should be aware of when facing warriors.

The first one is that warriors are immune to gouge when in Berzerker Rage.. they will have to activate this from Berzerk stance and but it do lasts a couple of seconds before going on cooldown. Second is that warriors can also break sap with the very same rage. Most experienced warriors enter berserk stage right before trying to cap a flag to be able to break our sinister saps... so what do you do?

For an epic warrior I sometimes go evasion -> sprint -> CS -> SS -> Rupture and flee.. hoping that the crippling poison will kite him. Dont go running to far or he'll intercept. vanish wait for the dot to do its job and then go in for another pass. Hopefully backup is on its way...

The nasty warrior.. when stalking the farm for an easy ninja-cap I sometimes see warriors running around attacking rats. These warriors are especially nasty since they continue to be in combat (no sap) and they fill up their rage bar for those nasty MS/whirlwind extravaganzas... I dont know if the other resources are equally rat infested but farm can keep a warrior at max rage for a long time...

Just 4k away from revered with AB now... slowly I am getting there. At this pace I'll be exhalted in about 40 days. Too easy to get epics for casuals? Bah. We have to sweat for it... however it might be too easy for hardcore solo (non-raiding) players.

Don't mistake the casual player for the solo-hardcore player.

Rank 7...

So I made rank 7 this week. The boots and gloves are mine... yet my Nightslayer Boots are better and I dont know if I can part with my devilsaur gloves yet.

Speaking of the devilsaur set.. isn't it a wee bit too good? I mean I've worn the set since I had the level requirement to wear them. There are not many better choices outside raiding and all you need are approx 80 gold for gloves & leggings.

I got halfway to rank 8 so I figured I am going to try for it and hopefully get the Knight-Captain's Leather Armor and the

Knight-Captain's Leather Legguards. I gather the devilsaur will still be stronger.

Tonight I'll try to get a full night's worth of AB. I've put up new wallpaper in the bedroom while my wife's parents have watched my son Nemo so I've earned a little extended WOW time ;)

It ain't easy to find time these days...

Patch 1.11 goodies

Patch 1.11 have a few rogue highlights to look forward to. My absolute favourite is the following

"Chain targeted spells and abilities (e.g. Multi-shot, Cleave, Chain Lightning) will no longer hit stealthed or invisible units unless visible to the caster."

As a rogue this is probably one of the top stealth-breakers when trying to stalk an often unsuspecting target...

"Detect Traps is now a passive skill."

I guess this is just streamlining the gameplay since most respectable rogues have this active all the time. No energy, no cooldowns etc.

1.11 patch notes available here.

Defence is paramount in AB!

I had to skip two chances of going to MC this weekend. Company party on friday left me pretty wasted on saturday for the Pinioned guild raid and sunday I had to take care of the family so no MC raid with Inquisitor either. I did have an hour or two to do some pvp though. I hope I'll reach rank 7 this week but little play means little honor.

Interestingly enough there seems to be new PVP rewards coming out for patch 1.11... I've hadn't have enough time to analyze the new stats but I expect them to be slightly stronger. I gather that will mean lots of more people competing for honor in the next couple of weeks.

AB at Ravencrest in pickup groups are usually a disaster. Most allies start off riding through the mine and lumber mill and converges at the Farm. Only sometimes do they listen to the plead to defend the resources before moving on. It usually ends with horde capturing most bases 4-1 or even 5-0... I try to get people to understand two basic rules:

1. Always defend AT THE FLAG. It makes it harder for the horde to ninja the flag in the chaos and for reinforcements to arrive quickly from the GY. More than often though alliance are fighting far away from the flag leaving the base open for ninjas and flanking attacks.

2. DEFEND the resources. It is not always fun to defend a resource but it is neccessary for the team to win. To have 3 ppl at a base usually buys enough time for reinforcements to arrive even if the base is attacked by 5-8 horde. Defense is a joke at Ravencrest. Most alliance are too busy riding onwards to the Farm or trying hopelessly to recapture the Stables.

Stuck at rank 6...

Well maintenance day, used to be my favourite day as you'd get a honor rank promotion. I really hoped to get rank 7 today but of course I totally filled up the rank 6 bar but not enough to carry me all the way to rank 7. I was hoping to buy the Knight-Lieutenant's Leather Gauntlets and the Knight-Lieutenant's Leather Boots today :(

Well.. another week of AB and a smattering of AV should solve that problem.

Hexapuma's build

I've recently switched from a 20/31 combat sword build to a more pvp oriented build after I discovered I lacked the proper punch in AB.

Right now my current build is 17/8/26 using daggers. Speaking of which.. I am probably not the best equipped rogue out there, being mostly clad in blue gear.

I am aching to try out a Seal Fate build or even the classical 21/8/22 dagger pvp build for the Cold Blood talent. Still I feel that my crit rate is still a wee bit low for a full SF build. In my current PVP gear I have about 18% ... kind of low for some but I have focused on lots of stamina and have just below 4000 hp.

Lets get this started

Since I do spend an awful lot of time playing WOW I thought it would be fun to keep a record of what I've actually ackomplished in the world of Azeroth.

First let me tell you a little about my current character.

Enter Hexapuma, a level 60 human rogue played on Ravencrest (EU). My exploits currently include instance raiding into Zul'Gurub and Molten Core. The raiding is somewhat seldom as I currently don't have the time to spend 5+ hours raiding. Well the problem is more that I can never be sure to have those 5 hours available when the guild wants to raid.

I am currently an officer in the guild Pinioned, a great guild that recently have started raiding seriously. Zul'Gurub is almost complete and we're looking forward to the first incursions into MC as Pinioned.

I've previously played both a warrior (Ripperjack) and a hunter (Aela) up to 60 but my true love has always been the stealthy rogue. Nothing compares to sneaking around invisible looking for prey...